A new BBC 5 Live podcast investigates the country’s so called ‘ghost children’.
The five-part series, Terri White: Finding Britain’s Ghost Children was developed in response to the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes in 2020. It explores how lockdown exposed cracks in the system designed to protect vulnerable children, exactly three years after the UK’s schools closed at the height of the pandemic.
Hosted by journalist and former Empire magazine editor, Terri White – herself, a survivor of child abuse – the series sees her go around the country investigating where the children missing from our schools are.
She not only reunited with her own school teacher, but spent time with a head teacher going above and beyond to get her pupils back into school, and spoke to experts and those on the frontline of education and social care.
Speaking about the motivation for creating the podcast, Terri said: “This podcast is a collision of my personal experience and my journalism. I know just how important school can be to keeping kids safe, and after hearing about children being missing from school post-pandemic, and especially after the devastating death of Arthur, I knew this was something that needed investigating.”
In the podcast, Terri also speaks openly about her past and upbringing in a little village six miles away from Chesterfield in a council house with her mum. She goes back to Chesterfield to visit her old primary school teacher Mrs Webley, who helped get her through her traumatic childhood.
The podcast also hears from Bernie, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes’ cousin who describes him as a happy child but couldn’t hold back her tears when discussing the torment he went through.
Jonathan Crawford, Head of News at BBC Radio 5 Live, said: “This podcast is a culmination of Terri’s childhood experiences and the reality of the societal issues we live in today, with the common factor being the importance of getting children into school.
“We will be covering the podcast and it’s very real life issues across our news programmes on BBC Radio 5 Live, with the podcast culminating with a live debate involving experts and key decision makers.”
The first of the weekly episodes is available from today, Wednesday 22 March on BBC Sounds.
