A Boy Without Hope. Casey Watson

a rear door, and were surprised to hear adult voices shouting from within.

      Coming up alongside the boy, who was still banging repeatedly on the door, the male officer knocked as well, and the door was then opened by a man who appeared to be in his mid- or late fifties. The man grabbed the child roughly and ordered him inside then demanded to know what the officers wanted.

      The police officers explained that they needed to go inside and, despite the male initially trying to shut the door, and then barring the entrance, eventually succeeded in persuading the male that they needed to go into the house.

      They described the scene as being ‘filthy and chaotic’. It appears the family (a 25-year-old female, a 58-year-old male, and the young boy, called Miller, who was four) were all living in something resembling a large conservatory, at the rear of the property. The house itself was derelict and abandoned. There were faeces covering the floor, dirty clothes lying everywhere, and takeaway cartons littered on every horizontal surface. There were also overflowing ashtrays and alcohol bottles everywhere.

      The female officer noticed the child had now disappeared and asked the female where he had gone. She replied with ‘to bed’ so the officer asked her where, and was led into another area – a former utility room, which also housed a toilet and wash basin. There were no utilities – just a single mattress along the back wall, with various coats, curtains and other clothing items strewn across it. The boy was apparently huddled beneath all of this.

      The woman, who seemed inebriated and/or under the influence of drugs, seemed to already understand that the officers would want to remove the child. ‘If you come to take him,’ she said, ‘you’ll need a few nappies. The filthy little savage still shits himself.’

      She apparently laughed as she said this and then picked up a half-pack of nappies and tried to hand them to the officer. Having established that the adults were the boy’s parents, the male officer explained that he was phoning a social worker, as the living conditions were clearly unsuitable for a young child.