Hundreds phone hotline after child migrant film

MORE THAN 700 people have contacted an emergency phoneline following the showing of The Leaving of Liverpool, a TV drama which highlighted the plight of thousands of child migrants sent from Britain to Australia after the Second World War, writes Mary Braid.

The calls coincided with an appeal from the Labour Party for a public inquiry into the government policy, in operation until 1967, which shipped more than 10,000 children, orphaned or in care in Britain, for a 'new start'. The policy was implemented with the help of 30 charities, and the Catholic Church. The children were told their parents were dead but, in fact, many were alive.

Hundreds of migrants, who say the British government betrayed them, claim they suffered years of neglect and abuse at the hands of agencies who were supposed to care.