"Chemical cosh" administered to teenage girls in 1980s Church of England children's home has caused birth defects in their own children

This Telegraph article draws attention to a scandalous practice in the 1970s and 1980s in which teenage girls were forcibly and inappropriately dosed with powerful psychotropic drugs as a method of behaviour control. As well as the harm and indignity perpetrated on these girls at the time, further dreadful harm has resulted in later years.

When these girls as adults gave birth to babies, the babies were born with serious disabilities. We read that "One of the women, Teresa Cooper, had three children, all with birth defects, after leaving the home in 1984 at the age of 16" and that she had been "given medication at least 1,248 times over a 32-month period."

On this BBC News webpage we read that "evidence shows the girls were, for years, given drugs which had been strongly criticised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Teresa, for instance, was given major tranquillisers: Haloperidol, Droleptan and Depixol. She was also given valium, diazepam up to 10 times the current recommended dose and Sparine, another major tranquilliser.

Jeffrey Aronson, professor of clinical pharmacology at Oxford University, says he has not seen a situation to compare and that the amounts and types of drugs given to Teresa were "unacceptable"."

I urge you to read the whole of the BBC news article. The 1980s are not very long ago. This appalling cruelty on defenceless children should never have been considered acceptible.