Britain's child beggars

[emmie]

BBC 1 programme, about Romanian child beggars and their families in Britain, If watching, what are your thoughts.

[factor-fiction]

I think most people who watched it will think twice now about giving money to these beggars. What we saw was begging clearly being run as a very profitable business. I missed a bit of it so i wasn't sure how they came into the country in the first place. It also highlighted the extent to which some groups see the UK as an easy target for benefit fraud. There is clearly a difficulty in trying to tackle the problem because there are then claims that Roma gypsies are being persecuted by a racist police force/government, and it is also difficult to pin down who is who in these gangs.
I found it depressing.

[ummmm]

I felt very sorry for the children. They were long working hours, and some of them so small.

Very annoying when you see the mansions some of them have in Romania. It was hard to establish if the women were being exploited or not. How many were doing it willingly and how many were doing it to pay off debts...

[brionon]

Why did it take the BBC to discover this ? Where were the Effin' Police ?

[pushybabe1]

i also watched most of it and to be frank they should be sent back to where they came from, this may sound harsh but its my own opinion, the children were mostly old enough to be in school and if that had been a british parent not letting their child attend school then they would have been taken to court for not sending the child to school so send then back

[Ric.ror]

No those children should be put in care because they are better off in care than with parents like them
As for the benefit fraud - I would have loved it if the £80,000 had gone to a whole village (it would probably have bought a whole one) and not to some fat repulsive old bloke and his harridan wife

[Bobbisox]

this was a shocking insight of where benefits are filtered abroad, this time to build mansions in Romania, very sad for these little children who are sent into this kind of a life..

[johnk]

well said ric

[Brenden]

This was happening in Hackney 15-20 years ago, send the whole kit and kaboozle back to romania - pronto.

[Bobbisox]

what a wimp the old guy was, she was screaming like a banshee, going to smash the reporters head in...while he cowered away behind her,
Yes Brenden, deport the whole lot back to Romania !

[emmie]

sorry to not get back before, but i did watch it all, and was wondering quite how is it Britain gets dumped on so often in this way. Whilst i have more than sympathy for the poor children, the despicable parents should be locked up for child cruelty. It was an appalling indictment of what's wrong with cross border go anywhere you please EU policy. The fact that many are claiming benefits in Britain made me see red. And indeed where were the effing police, social services in all this.
You see these people on the streets of London every day begging, either that selling the big issue, which is another bone of contention, where they have been found to be working for the romanian gangs, and not actually homeless.
John Sweeney did well to stand his ground for a time, but i would like to see some follow up as to what the outcome of this programme will be/is.

[emmie]

Brenden, exactly what i thought.

[Ric.ror]

Send the parents back maybe but we cannot send those little ones back to the squalor that some were living in (did you see the state of the food and the dirty kiddies - even on famine hit Africa the children are spotless)
If they do go back they will only be indoctrinated into continuing begging

[sandyRoe]

The Dons, or whatever they're called, build some really stylish houses with the money.

[emmie]

Ric, not according to the report, many of these women are living in comparative luxury, the young woman that john sweeney interviewed in romania was living in a mansion, along with her child. He said that they had been filming her for a long, as she had been begging, but she was far from being in penury. The capital is full to the brim with people like this, sorry i don't have sympathy for many of these fraudsters, not when the latest statistics on the elderly in Britain dying in fuel poverty are so atrocious.

[Ric.ror]

Werent those houses ghastly

[emmie]

ripped off individuals are paying for those ghastly mansions..

[Ric.ror]

I agree it's a disgrace they have claimed thousands by fraud but I would rather have it go to a whole village than just one fat b@stard to build some gaudy palace
Any parent that makes their child beg in the streets until all hours and use a phone box as a toilet is in my opinion as guilty of abuse as someone who is convicted and made to serve a prison term

[emmie]

Ric agreed, but don't see why British taxpayers pick up the tab for them to be in British prisons. Poor children.

[Ric.ror]

Well okay lets just put the kiddies in care and send those effing parents away
i dont suggest seperating these familes lightly but a warm dry care home and three meals a day has got to be better than what those evil parents have in store for their children
i also seem to remember a few years ago a programme about a romany parent pimping his son - think it was in paris