Teresa Cooper is a British author, speaker, and children's rights campaigner against family injustice and child abuse.
Cooper is known for her eighteen-year campaign fighting for the justice and exposure of one of the most horrific abuses against children in Local Authority and Church of England's care. She was one of the girls drugged, sexually abused and imprisoned in a small room for over 163 days while in care at the Kendall House children's home in Gravesend, Kent, in the 1970s and 1980s. The Kendall House records indicate daily administration of drugs in overdose form, both orally and by intra-muscular injections; sexual infections while incarcerated in the small room inside Kendall House, a large extensive list of psychotropic drugs and drugs for Parkinson's disease—all administered by force. Cooper's Kendall House records also include placebo and tests including urine, blood samples and swabs. [1] Cooper relates that the girls she was with in the home have now had children of their own with birth defects, and that these defects are a direct result of being drugged while at Kendall House. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
The story was first revisited in a national newspaper by Adrian Butler of the Sunday Mirror in January 2009. [7]
The story has been covered by Sally Gillen in 2007 reporter at Communitycare Magazine, [8] Review by Liz Davies is senior lecturer children and families social work, at London Metropolitan University [9] and blog by Sally Gillen. [10]
Cooper first took her case to Parliament with her then-MP Neil Gerrard in 1994. [11]
Cooper has since received a "substantial out of court settlement" in regard to her civil case against the Church of England. [12] [13]
Margaret Ann Coffey is a British politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Stockport from 1992 to 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, she defected to form Change UK.
Eric Jack Pickles, Baron Pickles, is a British Conservative Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentwood and Ongar from 1992 to 2017. He served in David Cameron's Cabinet as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from 2010 to 2015. He previously served as Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2009 to 2010 and was later the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion from 2015 to 2017.
The Company of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, commonly called the Daughters of Charity or Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent De Paul, is a Society of Apostolic Life for women within the Catholic Church. Its members make annual vows throughout their life, which leaves them always free to leave, without the need of ecclesiastical permission. They were founded in 1633 by Vincent de Paul and state that they are devoted to serving the poor through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
The Children's Society, formally the Church of England Children's Society, is a United Kingdom national children's charity allied to the Church of England.
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The North Wales child abuse scandal was the subject of a three-year, £13 million investigation into the physical and sexual abuse of children in care homes in the counties of Clwyd and Gwynedd, in North Wales, including the Bryn Estyn children's home at Wrexham, between 1974 and 1990. The report into the scandal, headed by retired High Court judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, which was published in 2000, resulted in changes in policy in England and Wales into how authorities deal with children in care, and to the settling of 140 compensation claims on behalf of victims of child abuse.
Rev. Nicolas David Stacey was a priest of the Church of England and social activist. He was Rector of Woolwich in the 1960s, and Director of Social Services for Kent County Council from 1974 to 1985.
The sexual abuse scandal in the Congregation of Christian Brothers is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.
An investigation into historic child abuse in Jersey started in the spring of 2007. Before that, social worker Simon Bellwood had made a complaint about a "'Dickensian' system" where children as young as 11 were routinely locked up for 24 hours or more in solitary confinement in a secure unit where he worked. The wider investigation into child abuse over several decades became public in November that year. It received international attention when police moved in on Haut de la Garenne, then being used as a youth hostel.
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