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So it turns out that Billy, the loser in EastEnders, is a care leaver. About the time that revelation came out, I also watched a US film in which a psychopathic killer had been in care. The next night came Touch of Frost, with another psychopathic killer who had been in care. In Hollyoaks, a student troublemaker was in care; in The Bill, a violent adult had grown up in care. You might also remember the award-winning TV drama Care, in which the three main characters, all care leavers, all committed suicide - one after beating up his wife on several occasions.


Some people, even care leavers, tell me I am the first care leaver they have met. I tell them that is very unlikely. The horrible truth is that most care leavers are afraid to mention the fact because they fear a stigma - of having led a criminalised childhood and being "damaged goods". One care leaver told me that when she told her boss she had been in care, he said: "Well, haven't you done well" - the implication being that she should be a no-hoper. It's a bit like the old racist comment: "You're not like all the rest." I am sure many readers have made similar comments. You don't know the damage it causes. But did you know that Tony Pidgley, managing director of the Berkeley Group, was in the care of Barnardo's and is now paid £4.6m a year? I have come across lecturers, senior social workers, doctors, astrophysicists and businessmen and women who have spent time in care. But you won't see successful care leavers portrayed in drama because that story takes more than a hack writer to compose. Nor will you see portrayals of care leavers as successful parents.

Children in care are pushed from home to home and from school to school. They arrive at the next school and, when the other children discover a care background, they ask: "Why were you in care? What did you do wrong?" Is it any wonder? Many parents threaten their children with care - as if it is a punishment for wrongdoing. The fact that a child may have no parents or may have asked to be put in care because of abusive parents is missed. Department of Health statistics (The Children Act Report, 1995-1999, page 16) show that only 5 per cent of children are in care through having committed an offence and another 5 per cent due to their "own behaviour".


However, it is so much part of the public perception that when I attended a select committee on abuse in care, the chairman, a former government minister, asked whether it was not the case that those who were abused in care had been put into care because they had misbehaved as children. That committee thanked members of false allegation campaign group Fact who suggested that 90 per cent of those jailed for abuse in care (including Frank Beck, who received six life sentences) were innocent, imprisoned by care leavers seeking financial benefit. The Holocaust never took place!

These prejudices build injustice. We care leavers are not ugly ducklings. We are fine swans. We may not have had a nest but we still learned to fly.

Phil Frampton is national chairperson of the Care Leavers Association and was formerly in care.