UNITED KINGDOM
BT
Vulnerable girls at a “toxic and destructive” Church of England children’s home were drugged and sexually and physically abused over nearly 20 years, a report has revealed.
Revelations of sexual abuse, ill-treatment and physical abuse at Kendall House in Gravesend, Kent, between 1967 and 1986 were outlined in an independent review.
It disclosed how girls as young as 11 were routinely, and often without medical assessment, given powerful anti-depressants, sedatives and anti-psychotic drugs.
Those that resisted, challenged or overcame the drugs’ effects faced sanctions, including being locked alone in a room for days on end or emotionally abused.
Others told how they were raped after being imprisoned in an isolation room and locked in alone overnight. And for some, the trauma of living at Kendall House lasts to this day, the review said.
The review said: “The findings are harrowing. They reveal an institution which had weak governance and oversight, a place where control, containment and sometimes cruelty were normalised.
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