Berrow Wood: The abusive school where boys were just a number

berrow-wood:-the-abusive-school-where-boys-were-just-a-number
Berrow Wood: The abusive school where boys were just a number

The infamous Berrow Wood School in Worcestershire, which was set up in 1966 to help “maladjusted” boys turn their lives around, has come under renewed focus after revelations that nine former members of staff have been convicted of physically and sexually abusing pupils over four decades. The BBC interviewed 10 survivors of Berrow Wood about their experiences, which included abrupt stripping of their namesis associated with individual identities and being largely known by a laundry number. They were referred to the residential school by social services as they were regarded as troublemakers with a troubled home life, but the pupils soon found out it was a forbidding place, despite good first impressions with state-of-the-art equipment and country setting.

Many of the boys described how they learnt more about surviving than reading and writing during their time at Berrow Wood. They found themselves dealing with horrific levels of physical and sexual abuse, which were an endemic part of

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