Location, Location, Location presenter Kirstie Allsopp has told of her upset after social services contacted her regarding her decision to let her 15-year-old son Oscar go interrailing across Europe with friends.
The 52-year-old revealed how she had been contacted by a social worker who informed her that a file had been opened after child protection concerns were raised.
“I just felt sick – absolutely sick. Then I was cross. I was very, very cross, “ Kirstie told the Mail On Sunday - explaining that she had been targeted by someone falsely alleging neglect of Oscar, who was 15 at the time of the trip but has since turned 16.
© Getty Images“It was just so extraordinary. I was in a parallel universe where they were actually taking this seriously.
“I have broken no law and nothing about allowing my child to travel around Europe is neglectful.”
Kirstie told how the social worker - who did not say who had made the complaint - insisted that every referral must be looked into and asked about what safeguards were put in place for her son’s trip.
They also informed Kirstie that a file had been opened on Oscar, and that her local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), could keep the file open “in case there was another referral and we needed to come to your house and look into this further”.
© Instagram“For me, that was the sucker punch – the idea this file might continue existing,” said Kirstie. “What (the official) said to me was, ‘if in six months there was another referral and we needed to come to your house and look into this further, it would be important that we had kept a note of the first referral’.
“That was the Orwellian moment. The fact it was maliciously done wasn’t coming home to her.”
A spokesperson for RBKC told the Mail: “Safeguarding children is an absolute priority. We take any referral we receive very seriously and we have a statutory responsibility for children under 18 years of age.”
Kirstie revealed the decision to let Oscar go away with his pals in a post on X (formerly Twitter) last week. She wrote: “For obvious budget reasons, inter-railing isn’t on the cards for everyone, but in this increasingly risk-averse world it’s vital that we find any ways we can to give our children the confidence that only comes from trusting them.
“Of course I missed spending the summer with our son, but I’m so proud of him & my loss is nothing compared to his gain & the encyclopaedic knowledge he now has of the differences between one McDonalds & another, if we’re afraid our children will also be afraid, if we let go, they will fly.”
Her decision received mixed responses, with some followers praising her choice while others expressing concern. Discussing her decision on Radio 4, Kirstie revealed how the fact her son is young for his school year influenced her decision.
“He’s 16 today and he’s a summer-born child, so he’s very young for his year,” she “As any parent of a summer-born knows, there’s always this dilemma that their friends will turn key ages before them, and do you hold them back simply because of the number of days in a year? Or do you say ‘Yes, you can do what your cohort is doing’. So, I think that’s the first thing.”
She added: “It’s strange to say I didn’t struggle with it on a practical level, because he came to me with a proposal, he’s a very sensible young man, he’s never been in trouble at school, and so when he said, ‘I want to do this’, I thought, ‘Right, okay, good on you’.
“I struggled on an emotional level that I knew I’d be not seeing him for quite a lot of this summer. “He’s only got two more years at school and then he’ll probably go to university, and then he’ll be away. So, as a parent, it’s always that thing of ‘Oh, I want to be with my child’, or is it good for them to do their own thing?”
