A child of our times

A teenage girl develops a severe personality disorder, and becomes an arsonist. Her adoptive mother suffers the appalling dilemma of not being able to cope with the now violent daughter she loves. To have her home invalidates the family’s fire insurance. And when at liberty the girl roams the street, living rough, having casual sex with men and committing patty crimes. TSW’s documentary charts the trauma of Beverly Channing’s life, tossed between homes, mental institutions and prison. Finally, thanks to the programme’s campaigning, Beverly gets the treatment the system was denying her. But as the film reveals, for every Beverly, there are hundreds of others Britain’s welfare state can do nothing to help.