Helen Grant

This news item appeared in the Sunday Independent in August 1998. I was asked for my opinion as I was campaigning for single parents.

Westcountry children living with just one parent are more likely to be sexually or physically abused, according to a shock new Government report.

Children living with a mum and her boyfriend were 33 times more at risk than those in two parent households, says the report on behalf of the Lords and Commons Family and Child Protection Group.

The findings come just a week after the Sunday Independent reported the case of Philip Martin, the four year old beaten to death by his mother’s boyfriend.

But Helen Grant, of Plymouth Gingerbread, a support group for single parent families, said the Government was often too quick to focus on the negative side of lone parents and step-families.

“The Government seems to want to promote the idea of the ‘normal’ family with 2.4 children, but there is no such thing as a normal these days”.

She said every case needed to be judged indvidually and there were no reasons why a child could not be happy living with one parent.

“A child can sometimes be a lot happier with a step family than with natural parents. Two parents arguing all the time is very distressing for a child.”

But one former child abuse victim, Roy Blackmore, 66, of Taunton, agreed with the findings and called for more to be done to protect youngsters. He said: “I am sure there are many who say they have taken to their step-child and love them as their own, but it appears the large majority of children are at risk”.