The Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) is hosting a screening of Warriors: Revisiting the boys of Ballikinrain, the 2012 film by Bafta award winning filmmaker, Stephen Bennett.
“The Care system is just a prison for people too young to go to prison”.
So says Bradley Noon. When I last filmed him he was 12 and in a care home called Ballikinrain, near Stirling – a place for kids who had been abused. Now 18 years old he wants to know why most of his former pals have ended up in prison, from petty crimes to attempted murder. Was this because they had been in Care?
“Warriors” tells the stories of Bradley, Paul and Ryan, once boys, now men. It examines how the ‘system’ has helped or damned them. Revisiting Ballikinrain Bradley is convinced this is the place that wrecked both his and his friends’ lives, but afterwards he wonders whether this is the case…
Later he meets John Carnochan, Head of the Violence Reduction Unit, a tough seen-it-all ex-Glasgow cop, lauded by the Prime Minister, who suggests the damage started far younger. Refusing to believe Bradley returns to where he grew up – a place he remembers his mother’s addictions – and is shaken. Could this be the route of all his – and his friends – problems? He meets foremost child psychologist Suzanne Zeedyk to find out how early such problems can be traced. Her answer – the womb. For Bradley and the audience it’s a moving journey.
The event will start at 4.30pm with introductions and the screening of the film followed by a panel discussion with speakers from the Violence Reduction Unit and Trauma Informed Lawyers.