| Flowers in Gods Garden
- Articles |
09/07/94 - The day that trust
moved out
SANDRA BARWICK
Independent
UNDER the hot sunshine on the Headland, workmen this week
were battering metal sheets over the windows of the council
flat where little Rosie Palmer's body was found. Fury
and fear are running high on this council estate in Hartlepool
which lies on a spur of land jutting into the North Sea,
with the silhouettes of cranes in the docks on one side.
'The people here were that angry and frightened they were
all ready for going down and torching that house at first,'
said Deborah Willingham, sitting on her doorstep with
her friend while their children played beneath their watchful
eyes. 'To behonest, I'm terrified.'
A general fear of the bogeyman child-snatcher has seized
the Headland to an even greater extent than the rest of
the country, gripped by the disappearance of Abbie Humphries
from a Nottingham hospital. That terror has not been assuaged
by the fact that a man is now in custody.
All strangers are now suspect - little is known of the
man' s past, and estimates of how long he had been on
the estate vary from six months to two years - and the
community iswary of single men who have recently been
housed there.
They want to know whether procedures exist to prevent
people who could have a criminal record, particularly
of crimes against children, from being housed in areas
where large numbers of childrenlive. But their questions
are not yielding satisfactory answers.
The numbers of alleged criminals living on the estate
seem to rise almost each time the subject is discussed.
Some say there are four, others that there are seven,
others again that there is a rapist on the corner - who
knows? 'You say to your kids, 'don't talk to strangers',
but how can you say, 'don't talk to neighbours'?' asked
Carol Butterfield, sitting with Deborah on the doorstep.
What more can be done to safeguard children, they ask
each other - just as maternity units across Britain are
wondering what further safeguards, even against women
in nurses' uniform, they can put in place. Residents at
a stormy meeting demanded to know from local council officers
what policies exist to put their minds at ease.
In the climate of tension, parents have discovered that
although it is possible to check on the criminal backgrounds
of men andwomen applying for jobs that bring them into
contact with children, there is no straightforward system
to prevent those with a sexual criminal history from being
rehoused in an area full of small children playing on
the streets.
'We didn't get any answers,' said Jackie Kenny, a mother
of three. 'Every time we asked what safeguards there were,
they told us it wasn' t their department,' said Deborah
Willingham. The people of the Headland believe that clear
government guidelines are necessary if they are ever to
be able to quash their fears about alleged sex offenders
presently living in their midst.
Some officials privately agree that this may be a usefulsubject
for public discussion, but accept it is one that will
inevitably raise the question of civil liberties. The
Headland is that rare thing, a genuine community, in some
ways an old-fashioned place.
For years fishermen and dockers have lived here and enjoyed
a sense of freedom that came from security and the knowledge
of deep roots. Older women still chat by their garden
walls in their pinnies, and hordes of blond children run
in and out of the homes of friends and relatives.
This openness explains why Rosie's mother delayed for
five hours while friends' houses were checked beforethe
police were called. Until her disappearance, all the children
played in fine weather on the streets and by the sea,
yards from the houses. These traditional playgrounds are
now cut off.
The thought of the long summer holiday ahead fills the
mothers of the Headland with dread. It is now a ghost
town, its streets empty, its doors closed, while inside
the houses is a desperate need forreassurance that the
law of the land reflects the fears of its citizens.
'There should be screening of people coming into council
houses,' said Kenneth Officer, an unemployed clerk, as
he watched his daughter play. 'I'm not talking about Rosie's
death - but there's all sorts of rumours about who's living
on this estate.'
A lack of confidence in authorities' rules leads in these
circumstances to a dangerous climate. The rumours sweeping
the Headland may be quite untrue, but they are gaining
in intensity. 'People have said 'get them out, or we'll
do it',' said one woman. 'At the meeting, that's what
people were saying. This is a place where people care,
but it's also the kind of place where that could happen.'
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