Who Trolled Amber? - You Can’t Unknow | Careless Ep 3

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

After months of bureaucratic delays, Nkechi finally sits down with her care files. But is it always better to know? Ashley asks Baroness Lola Young, who grew up in care, about the impact of reading her care records. A social worker reveals the reality of how records are written.Reported by Ashley John-Baptiste and Madeleine ParrProduced and written by Madeleine ParrSound design by Simon Panayi Artwork by Jon Hill The editor is Jasper CorbettCareless is a 4 part original series from Tortoise Investigates and The Observer.To binge listen to all episodes today, ad-free, subscribe to The Observer.Or subscribe to Observer+ on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to listen to all our podcasts, including this one, without any ads. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tortus Investigates. Hi, it's Bashar Cummings here from The Observer. Before we get going, I just wanted to let you know that to listen to the full investigation, you'll need to subscribe to The Observer, where you can get access to all of our Tortus Investigates podcast series. It's really easy to subscribe. You can sign up on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or directly atobserver.com. If you're already a subscriber, just link your account.

Thanks, as ever, for listening. First of all, they're here. Dun dun dun. What does it feel like looking at this stack of papers? Daunting, for sure. Nakeech and I are sitting at a table in the Observer's Office in July with my producer Madeline. I think we're both trying to stay calm and keep the mood light. But the truth is that sitting between us heavy on the table is something huge.

And I don't just mean that metaphorically. It's a massive stack of paper. This is all the same thing, but because obviously I had loads of missing pages because didn't have enough paper or ink. So technically it's all 350 pages. We've been talking about this moment for a long time and we've gone back and forth on where and how she would look through the files. But Nakechi's been steadfast in wanting to do it here

and allowing us to record her opening them. It's been six years since Nakechie first attempted to get her records. In 2020, she was told she could only view some of them in person at the council's town hall. And since she submitted this last subject access request, it's been eight months. Through all of the emails, the waiting, the calling, the frustration, her goal has felt clear to get hold of her records and find answers to her questions about her upbringing. But at this point... I'm super anxious.

I feel like there's been a lot building up to this point. And now they've arrived and I don't fully know what to expect. I don't know. It's just weird. I don't think many people get to experience this. Most people hear about their life through their parents or their nan or members of their family. Whereas I have in detailed... logs from people of some of the hardest things I've ever experienced, or my parents have experienced, all my wider family have experienced.

And so that also means it's not coming from a personal perspective. This is someone else's opinion. And I guess that also means I don't know how to feel or what to anticipate in terms of the accuracy of it, I guess. It's someone else's interpretation of what my family looks like. I don't know. I feel like I'm worried that sometimes not knowing is actually, like, better. And I've gone into this being like, I need to know, I need to know, I need to know.

But the thing with that is once you know, you can't unknow. So hopefully knowledge is power. It might be patchy and a bit blurry, but Nakechi's current version of her childhood is at least familiar. She's had years to come to terms with it and to repair relationships with it. Currently, she's in a good place with both her parents. But could these records ruin that?

I'm Ashley John Baptiste, and from Tortus Investigates and the Observer, This is Careless, Episode 3, You Can't Unknow. Nikechie's waited long enough. But before she opens the files, there's one other interaction with the council that you should know about. Have you received any offer of therapeutic support? I did send an email to the lady my case had been allocated to, and I did sort of ask whether that was something that they'd be able to give me. And she basically just said, no, because I'm older than 25.

And so that means there isn't any therapeutic support available. She's stipulated your age. Yeah, yeah. Too old. Too old for therapy, ma'am. There shouldn't be an age limit where you become forgotten about or become less worthy of emotional support. Most people, if not all people, that are care experienced, have navigated some kind of trauma. and so therefore going through their files is naturally going to hash up all of that trauma and then to be left to deal with that by yourself is cruel.

Lakechi reassures me that she has a solid support system of friends and family but I know from my own experience of reading my files that the impact can be huge and overwhelming. I think all three of us in the room are holding, our breath as Nakechi turns over the first page. It's something called a core assessment record from her school when she was just five years old. But before she can even read the first sentence, she stops. That's not even my birthday, that's wrong.

I'm not born in 2000. I was born in 99, so someone ripped that down wrong. We're talking about accuracy and on the very first page, my date of birth is wrong. And that's not all. Her name is also spelt wrong. If you can't double check whether you've spelled my name right or my date of birth is right, how many other things have you not fact checked? Throughout a lot of the records, she's referred to by her middle name, Monet.

It's the name she adopted after being bullied for her first name, Nakechi. So there was a time in her life when she was Monet. I haven't identified as that for so long. So to see myself being talked about, not using my first name is so strange and it's like throwing me off reading it. As we keep going, sometimes Nekichi replaces Monet with Neketchi as she reads out loud. Even on these initial pages, Neketchi is learning things about herself for the first time. Ketch has not had her meningitis C vaccination as her mother refuses for this to be done.

The health visitor has spoken to the mother on numerous. occasions, but she is adamant in her decision on this matter. Did you know that before reading this? No. No. And that's major. Health data are about yourself. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. I hadn't even thought about that. Yeah, that's true. No, I didn't know. I didn't know. Do I get that? Should I get that now? Am I supposed to have that?

I don't know. Maybe I need to think about that. Okay. She carries on flipping. through the pages. There are assessments, letters and forms all relating to her life as a five-year-old. The age Nakecchi thinks that social services first became involved in her life. Soon, the administrative and spelling errors give way to something heavier. It says, received a referral from Kentish Town School, raising concerns about Monet's behaviour

and mother's inability to meet her emotional needs. Monet was trying to emotionally parent her mother. I guess I knew that my mum had had her difficulties and that there was a lot going on for her. But to read that I had maybe been taking on a parenting role at 5, it's quite sad. sad. I feel, I feel quite sad for that younger version of myself. At just five years old, she was trying to hold her family together to protect her younger sibling and calm her mother.

You can really get a sense of just how vulnerable she was at this age and knowing that makes something else about these records so disturbing. These were written by the teachers, social workers and medical professionals assessing her, caring for her and and responsible for her well-being. The files show that they were aware of how hard life was for her at that age, and yet the way she's described... Ketch is able to make friends and is a popular child in school. This, however, could be as a result of her tendency to be quite bossy towards her peers.

The school have noticed signs in Ketch that her behaviour could suggest she has the capacity to become quite aggressive and defiant. They've also ticked a box that says, I bully other children. And it says, it's the box, the tick box says child bullies other children, and they've ticked it. And then put notes and evidence, no, but can be quite domineering of her peers. Bullie, domineering, defiant, aggressive. I'm five years old. And you're going through a lot of trauma at home.

Very mad way to describe. traumatised child, I think. Ticking a box to describe a very vulnerable five-year-old as a bully, undeniably appears uncaring and lacks any awareness of her situation. There are no examples given to support these labels or any context. It is just a quick swipe with a bireo that brands Nakechie as a problem. But as she keeps reading, it becomes clear that wasn't even the worst box on this form. There's a tick box here that says parent or carer loves the child unconditionally, i.e. without strings attached. And they've ticked it, but they've put in the notes and evidence. This is difficult to state conclusively, although mother has stated that she does.

In other words... I don't think so, but mum says she does. Does parent-love child inconclusive? Ketchy, I'm so sorry that you're reading this. It's devastating, life-shattering even. To see such a sensitive question about a mother's love for her child reduced to something as banal as a tick box on a form filled out by a stranger feels truly careless.

And how would they know? This is a person who Nakechi doesn't even remember making such huge and impactful statements about her mum's most intimate feelings for her. Over the next few hours, Nakechi pours over the files, sometimes reading them out loud. And on occasions, it's just too hard. I'm going to skip, skip. Why did you skip that bit?

Because it's just sad. It's too sad. And I don't want to be... They knew I was being exploited. They knew. It wasn't protected. And if people knew, then they should have done something. At Nakeechi's request, we pause our recording.

It doesn't feel right to keep the tape rolling. She steps outside, and a few minutes later, we regroup in the Observer's Office to talk more about what she's just read. She's really clear that the exploitation she's referring to doesn't involve anyone in her family. I think the hardest part about reading some of this so far is that not necessarily that I didn't remember specifically, but I think something I had maybe told myself is that they didn't know.

Like I wasn't removed from my mum ever. I was put under a section 20 because that was what she felt was right. And so to read these documents and effectively what they're saying is, no we knew. Like we knew from a very young age that this stuff was going on in the home

but we didn't do anything about it is mind blowing. Because I think I had just assumed that they weren't aware of the depth of it. But it seems so far that they were very much aware. So that's hard. because then I feel that that kid was just left. Well, that kid is me, but you know what I mean?

To be honest, it's hard to imagine that anyone who wrote these files was imagining this day when the Ketchi would sit down and read about herself. It's painful to watch her absorb these blows, but she's determined to keep going. So we cautiously settle back in. This is a school report. It's not very nice. I think we've read.

enough, not very nice things about as a kid at school. Jo, can you be able to read all of this in detail? Do you now want to, given the contents of it? No. No, I don't. Because they knew and they still chose to write about me in a way that is really harsh. And I remember enough at this point to not need to read their opinion. and I think I valued their opinion

when I thought they didn't know. Yeah. But now... Clearly her patience is waning. How could she have predicted how judgmental the social worker's responsible for these records would be? And then the final straw. Nakechi reads something about her family

that is too painful for her to share publicly. Okay, so you... didn't know that. That's really heavy. That's really sad. I think we should pause there. I'll go for a cigarette, please. Yes, of course. Thanks. Why don't we say, why didn't we stop now? Her assessment of me was that I was large and lazy.

That's how you referred to? Yeah, yeah, yeah, several times. A large Nigerian girl. And it's like, yeah, I was tall. I wasn't the tallest in primary school. Lola Young is a cross-bench pier in the House of Lords She's also an author and just like Nakechi, an actor And she grew up in care There was one quite cruel remark I think it was written when I was about 14

And it said something like, well she's not very attractive Lola's telling me about how she was described by social workers in her records In the 1950s and 60s I'm thinking What the hell of what? you're talking about? You know, and, you know, why do you feel compelled to make these, you know, assessments of my appearance? When Lola left Care at 18, she had burning questions

about her parents and her upbringing, but she pushed them to the back of her mind. I had scraps of information, but I'd sort of more or less given up hope on ever extending my knowledge. It wasn't until she was nearly 60, shortly after she was appointed to the House of Lords that a mysterious envelope arrived from Lagos, Nigeria. So when this envelope came into my office with photographs, there was a photograph of a group of women sat around a table drinking sodas, and there was a little kind of, I don't know what,

it would have been a bit of a post-it over this woman's head and it said in handwriting on the post-it, mother and with a little arrow pointed down. That was literally the first photograph I ever had of my mother. There was a handwritten note which I always thought, I imagine, because quite a strong imagination, I always thought that it was written by somebody who was on the phone and trying to write down at the same time

in the notes that somebody was telling her because it was all a little bit disjointed and sort of a bit all over the place. On two sheets of A4 paper, some detail were scrawled about what her mother had been doing in the country and a bit about her father. She wasn't sure exactly who sent the envelope, but it opened up a new curiosity about her childhood. In passing, Lola mentioned this mysterious package to a friend. She said, well, you do know you can access your care records, don't you?

And I said, what do you mean? I didn't know what she was talking about. But she'd been a probation officer in Islington, which was where I was in care. The friend explained to Lola that an act had been passed in 1989, which meant that care experienced people had the legal right to access their records. Lola was determined to get answers about her parents and her childhood anyway, so she applied to Islington Council to access her records. But maybe unsurprisingly at this point, it wasn't straightforward.

There'd been an administrative thing whereby somebody else, and she told me they didn't exist for a while. And because Islington had these homes that I was in, were outside of London. She thought that I should go to the borough councils that were responsible for those areas. And when I said to a no, these places belonged to Islington. That's one of the things that struck me,

there was no institutional memory from Islington. There was no idea that the Islington had these homes scattered around, the north of London in the countryside and elsewhere. And so it's like she couldn't kind of accept that when I said that. Eventually, Lola's records were located. Pouring through them, it quickly became clear that the contents would be distressing. There was a letter from a prospective foster parent that Lola had met once, only briefly, detailing why she wouldn't foster her.

Her assessment of me was that I was large and lazy. I didn't like the arts. I didn't like reading. I didn't like anything apart from dance. And I didn't go to art galleries and museums. And that I would be troubled soon, no doubt, with boys. Now, how she got all of that from this thing? And also, I don't know, I don't, obviously I don't remember the details of the

conversation, but I was never particularly interested in dance, actually. And of course I didn't go to museums because I was stuck in a bloody children's home outside of London in the countryside somewhere. So this, but this, this, this, this missive was like three, I think three pages long, very unpleasant, very unpleasant to read. There was also another letter, one from her mother.

And I thought, well, that's interesting, because you never wrote to me. But so there was a letter from my mother in there written when social services had informed her that my foster mother had died and that I'd gone to live with a foster family. And that was up. I found it very upsetting

because it was addressed, obviously, to the director of social services who'd written to her from, and she was in Lagos. And she said something like, you know, oh, I'm glad to hear that she's doing all right. Let me know if you, want me to send any money for her upkeep.

But there was like, you know, there was no kind of words of endearment or, and I guess in a way you'd kind of not expect that in those days from somebody writing to a, you know, an Islington official. But, you know, I guess I thought maybe she could have put a little note in there to say, pass this on to Lola or send her my best wishes. or say hello, but maybe there's a level on which there's nothing you could say. It's hard not to see the parallels here between Lola and Nakechi's experiences. Of course there are years and whole life stories separating them,

but Lola reading the letter from her mother reminds me of what Nakechi found in her files, a revelation that's too painful for Nakechi to talk about. And I'm worried about the weight of that revelation on her, so I'm keen to understand how Lola's own records affected her. There was a sense I didn't want them sullying my new sort of flat. So I took them away. We were in Cornwall. And I remember going to have this really hot shower.

Hot, hot, hot, scrub, scrub, scrub. Yeah, and I developed neck pains, back pains and all the rest of it. So the tension in my muscles, you know, would literally have been palpable. So, and sometimes I just had to go out and go for a walk. I totally understand this physical reaction described by Lola. When I received my files in my early 20s, I remember the sheer exhaustion I felt after reading through a dozen pages. For at least a day, all I wanted to do was sleep.

It's as if the words I'd read had crept inside and wore me down. Everything felt heavier, denser, and my body and mind needed time to come to terms with them. It's horrible to hear that, the kind of similarities. It's unbelievable, actually, because, you know, look, I didn't expect things to be this kind of like sunny sort of nirvana type situation around care experience. Of course not. But I would have imagined that, I mean, we're talking about nearly 60 years ago when I left care

and you're telling me that somebody is experiencing very similar kinds of, things in the hunt for their care records. I find that quite distressing, actually. No, it's really unacceptable to write in that way about a child. Oh, gosh, sorry, I'm still sort of boiling from that. Lola is in an unusual position. As a member of the House of Lords and therefore a legislator, she can turn this personal frustration into real change.

But to her, it's not as straightforward as injure producing new laws. Policy and legislation can only do so much. What you need is attitudinal changes. You need cultural changes, which would make it unacceptable. And so if you make a statement like that, give us the example. Give us, you know, give us the evidence that we'll back up what you've said. And if you can't do that, then don't write it.

You know, as I say, it's completely unacceptable to be so judgmental about children. When we sat with Nakechi opening her files, I could see the toll they were having on her. Finding out just one of these revelations about her childhood was bound to sting. But she's been confronted with blow after blow, and she barely even dented the stack of paper in front of her. And I could see in real time how some of that language was chipping away at her sense of self. In the days after she first opened her files, Nakechi goes pretty quiet. When we do finally speak, I'm anxious to hear how she is. I thought I was ill.

I thought I was like coming down with something. Like I've been really foggy, really like tired, headache, sleeping, not sleeping. Yeah. And I was like something's not right. Over the last 10 months that I've known Nakechi, one of the main things that stood out to me is how robust she is. She's been through a lot in her life. Yet she always radiates this kind of positive attitude.

But this, this has really thrown her. I didn't expect it. I just thought, oh, I'm going to be a bit sad. Yeah. And that's it. But it's actually had so much of a domino effect. Wow. Not in the right head space, not sleeping well, forgetting things.

Feeling like I just cannot be bothered to do anything. In the seven days since I seen you last, I've probably spent five of them in bed, crying. crying, like really hurt and confused and sad. So, yeah, I've had a couple of bed days, to be honest, and I've had to take some time to just be under those sheets and have a cry. This is the reality of the effect these files can have. Lola Lem and Nakechie have all described the profound impact of being written about in a hurtful way as a child.

But how does a professional, a social worker or a teacher, end up writing about a vulnerable child like this and bring in a subjective agenda to something so crucially objective as the records of a life? It feels like the only way I'm going to understand this is by speaking to someone who was actually holding the pen at the time that Nakechi was in care. I've been a social worker since 2014.

This is Nana Yabi Hagan. He became a social worker soon after Nakechi went into foster care. To be clear, Nana was never involved in Nakech's care. He's worked for a London authority for over a decade. I think our job role, we do get a lot of criticism. And I think for social workers across the country, we never had the opportunity to kind of be able to voice what actually it means to be a social worker,

what it means to kind of manage, you know, the high case. the lack of resources, the staff turnover, the burnout. I'm really hoping Nana will help us understand how Nakechie's files ended up being so sloppy in some places and callous in others. How many children and young people could a social worker have oversight for? So depending actually on the team that you're in,

so ideally we really want social workers to be within the 12 to 15 mark, ideally. but I know that isn't the case for all social workers. Some social workers are holding 20 plus, some are holding 30 plus. 30 plus. Yeah, but actually, I as a social worker when I was in locality, had 40 children. Wait there, pause. Pause, pause, pause, pause. How are you able to really meet the need as a social worker of 40 children slash young people?

To be honest with, actually, you're not going to be able to. And, you know, I'm happy to say when I had 40 children actually was hard. It's not easy, actually, because you can't, because you do drop the ball, you will miss things. You know, you might miss an email or you might miss something has happened. You are going to, you are going to miss things. Whereas if social records have lower case loads, you have the time. You can see what you're doing. You're not operating in a fog when you have a lot of caseload.

Operating in a fog, that is how the official record of a child's life gets made. When it comes to Camden, the council told us that, No social worker in the borough has more than 23 young people at any one time, and typically it's between 11 and 13. But Nana describes a relentless, exhausting, daily grind of trying to keep 40 vulnerable human lives afloat. I was doing two or three visits a day, and sometimes because my children and young people, some who were in care,

so you can imagine actually I was doing visits across the borough, visit outside of London, then I had to come back, you know, sometimes I wouldn't even have my lunch. You know, that's how actually hard it is. And the care files, the permanent historical record that Nakechie is currently holding in her hands, in a system this overstretched, updating them gets squeezed into the margins of an over-packed life. So for me, it really meant kind of like late nights in terms of keeping my case files up to scratch as well, making sure that my visits were on the system, making sure that I was emailing professionals. It was really, really hard, actually. Like I said, there was times where I had to work on the weekends or I had to work very, very, very, very late to keep on top of it. When I had those children, sometimes actually, I've reviewed case files.

and I've seen a visit and it's quite bland. In others, I've seen it beautifully written. Well, I've seen that, you know, that social worker really knows they're a young person. But Nakech's files weren't just bland. They contained real punitive judgments. I listed some of the words used to Nana. I do think that it's wrong.

And I do feel, actually, what that's down to is the relationship that practitioner has with that child. If you're a young person as a bully, you shouldn't be working that young person. Even if a young person is angry, it's not about saying,

oh, you was aggressive. I'll articulate it. Listen, I know that you were upset on this visit with me and this is how I tried to articulate it. What's important is that you are giving context to your young people.

We're missing the context that is bringing the true picture of the young person. Nana is also able to give me a window into another side of the process. He's worked on subject access request before, compiling the files ready for viewing.

The files are absolutely massive. And so when the request is made, obviously there's so much that you have to go through referrals, if applicable, police reports, child protection plans, child and need plans, looked after children. And then what you also actually have to do is that there's things around in data protection.

So within actually those files, they might be references to... to other people, you've got to do the appropriate redactions. It's absolutely, actually, massive. But the one that I know I did, I think it was like 2,000 pages. Actually, it took me months to go through. It took me so, so, so, so long. It's not just the volume of the files.

Camden Council revealed to us that since April, 2023, they have received 308 subject access requests relating to children. children's social care. We don't know the details of these requests, but at least some of them are likely to be similar to Nakechis, people requesting the totality of their files. But despite this, Nanna thinks there are ways of improving the experience for the person requesting their records. I think with those requests, we have to let people know what the process is. What we can do is just checkpoints, checkings to say, right, this is what we're going to. This is what we're where we're at, I've got through about X amount of page or half of the file, then they can feel

a bit more calm and relaxed in terms of the process, but it's when you're not hearing anything, that's the reason why I think people are like, well, what's going on? I asked Nana if this was something he was trained to do as protocol. It's not something I was trained. I just think that I just do on my own accord. I just wanted them to know where we're at. Here's the thing. I get the sense that Nana cares a lot.

But in England, there are around 36,000 children's social workers, and we can't rely on each of these individuals to go above and beyond what's asked of them. Throughout my chat with Nana, we go back and forth on the responsibility of individual social workers, how they don't always form close relationships with their young people and the training they receive. But I keep coming back to an image of these records being written. Some are writing in the office, some are writing it. at home, some are writing in their cars. It could be anywhere and anywhere, really.

You know, as a social worker, you're regularly kind of chasing your tail. There's a picture being painted here of a job that's almost impossible to do well when you have so many young people to support. And who loses out the most? The young person. Nakechi spent the last week pouring over those pages, or as much of the 350 of them that she can bear. And as the records charted her teenage years, even her happiest memories became muddled.

Nakechi's time in Cambridge shirt has always been something she remembers as a rare sanctuary, and her foster mum was a maternal figure who offered warmth and stability. But on page after page of the care files, Nakechi discovered that her foster mum had been keeping detailed clinical observations of her every move. There were bits from my foster carer's first impression of me. Her observations of those first few days of caring for me and the fact that I was quite unkempt and, you know, not practicing good hygiene. Ketch isn't very good at brushing her teeth every day.

Ketch seems very withdrawn. It was hard to read her opinions. I don't know why I'd know. never thought about the fact that she would have been, of course, taking notes and observing me. But I just hadn't considered that before. Even in a foster home filled with genuine care, the system requires surveillance. For Nakechi, reading those records was a painful confrontation that despite the closeness she felt to her foster mum, there would always be an official boundary and bureaucracy between them.

Reading the files was a reminder that she wasn't my mum. She wasn't my mum. And no matter how much I loved her and it felt like she loved me and she showed me so much care and compassion and there was compassion in her writing. It wasn't, you know, cold or clinical. But it just was the fact that it existed was so difficult because it was confronting the fact that this was a paid professional

who had me in their home and looked after me, but also had to report back. There was just this secondary layer to all of those relationships no matter how personal they felt, they were also professional. And not only were the files compiled through a layer of professional detachment, they also seemed to be, in a way, deeply impersonal. Another thing that was really interesting is my voice is not in there at all, really, from what I've read.

There's no point in which I've come across my own feelings or opinions or this is what Nakechi has said. There are loads of incident reports, but none of them are my version of events at all. It's all just opinion from social workers and professionals. And as I said, sometimes there's not even a name to whose opinion it is. So it's a collection of random voices and horrific incidents. Instead of her own voice, the Ketchy was confronted with a wall of punitive labels written by strangers when she was just a small child in crisis,

labels that she realised she had spent her entire adult life carrying. When you've been labelled for a really, really long time by everybody, professionals, teachers, social workers, your foster parent, it's hard to not internalise those labels. And so then to read paperwork that I feel reinforces all of those labels and all of that shame. And there are points where professionals are basically saying, yeah, this kid is going to have long-term problems. I'm now sat here sort of questioning, oh, like, am I messed up?

Like, am I broken because of all of these things? So a week later, Nakechi doesn't seem to be finding the closure she was searching for before we met. Instead, she's facing a pile of pages, supposedly comprising her early life story. It's damning and cruel in places. And in others, it's sloppy and careless, composed by a carousel of faceless professionals willing to write off a traumatised child as difficult. It's sent over in an email with transactional business-like language, with no follow-up, let alone therapeutic care.

I've got to say it's a lot more corporate than parent, and there's something I need to tell Nakechi about this. We reached out to Camden Council, asking them if they would give us an interview about your case and this issue more generally. They have told us that they won't be doing an interview. They said they would give us a statement, but they've said they won't do an interview.

Wow. Just feels like confirmation that they're never going to take accountability. They're never going to take accountability. They're never going to be... They're my corporate parents, but they're not my parents. And they have no real duty of care or responsibility to me anymore. So they can just say no. This was never about blame.

I just wanted to understand and actually what I've come across in the journey of trying to retrieve my files has been nothing short of cold and unhuman and that only got worse when I read my files and they should be ashamed of themselves for not wanting to take any accountability I'm hurt by all of their decisions, my entire life.

But the council isn't done with her yet. Next time on the final episode of Careless. I was at home eating dinner and watching these senders. And I was just, I always check my emails sporadically. And I saw it and I was like, oh, right, okay. And I actually decided not to look. And then the next morning I was sort of in bed having a coffee

and I thought, right, let's have a look at that then. And it's a couple hundred pages more. Careless is reported by me, Ashley John Baptiste and Madeleine Parr. It was produced and written by Madeline Parr. Artwork is by John Hill. Sound design is by Simon Pinaeep. The editor is Jasper Corbett. Thank you for listening.

To get the full series, subscribe to the Observer, on your listening platform of choice. or directly at observer.co.uk, where, as well as all of our podcasts, you'll also get access to the rest of our excellent journalism. Visit observer.com.ukh forward slash subscribe, forward slash audio, and use the code Audio 50 for 50% off today. Tortus Investigates.