John Sweeney reported in this programme - this time without having an unprofessional rant on screen as he once did. Yet you got the feeling that he was not searching hard enough behind the scenes - he chatted to mothers on the streets in London and also with families back at their substantial gypsy villas in Romania - but he seemed to be eluded in getting a real grip on the men that seem most likely to be controlling the trafficking and exploitation in London of large numbers of children, many of pre-school age. Some were in Slough, Chalvey - an area I know from my teens. No Romanians there in the 60s to the best of my knowledge.
The mothers appeared content enough that their children begged with them - or on their behalf - for long hours on the streets, indeed it seemed that this was nothing novel to those Roma that were seen back in Romania. Despite the large numbers of children in care proceedings in Britain (9% increase in the last quarter to end Sept) there was an obvious police reluctance in London to take action and actually remove children from abusive parenting and we never got to hear from children themselves. Sweeney was lambasted by a Romanian matriarch in Romania who picked up a stone to threaten the camera crew. Maybe if Sweeney looked less scruffy himself he would have gained greater cooperation?
I went to Romania for work reasons in 1997, into the interior in Tirga Jui. The houses that I saw there and in Bucharest were nothing like the 'blingy' Roma villas that were clustered in the village that Sweeney saw. I saw no-one that was overweight. So I hope that many don't gain a false impression that the picture shown today is what much of Romania is like now. One of the sad things about British TV is that it is so insular, there is not enough about life and welfare systems in other European countries.
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