THE actor Samantha Morton has admitted she thought twice before revealing that she had been sexually abused in care at the age of 13.
Morton, the star of Minority Report and the recent BBC adaptation of Cider with Rosie, said that the decision to speak out had been “difficult”, but she felt it was important to give a voice to those who have suffered from abuse.
Morton spent much of her early childhood in foster homes before moving permanently into a council-run children’s home in Nottingham when she was 11.
Last year she revealed that she had been sexually assaulted by two residential care workers. When she subsequently told social workers they did nothing.
Morton decided to speak out after the emergence of claims of organised sexual abuse in Rotherham and Oxfordshire.
“I was frustrated at how vulnerable young people were being treated,” she told a Sunday newspaper. “This has got to stop. There needs to be a radical rethinking because the system is not working.”
She said speaking out was “hard and tough and incredibly painful,” and she only did it after obtaining approval from her partner and her family.
“I’m still in the middle of an investigation with the police," she said. "I’m glad I did it. It was important. I have a voice. Most of these people don’t have a voice and I didn’t have a voice when I was a kid either.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here