Kirstie Allsopp has hit back after being slammed for letting her 15-year-old son go on a Europe trip – which led to probe being launched by child social services.
The TV star, who has been under fire for a week, compared the distance her youngest Oscar travelled to a regional journey in Australia.
Ms Allsopp wrote last week on social media about how proud she’d been of her teenager for heading off on a three-week interrail trip with just one other pal.
She shared details of his journey on X, formerly Twitter, saying: ‘If we’re afraid, our children will also be afraid. If we let go, they will fly.’
Ms Allsopp was quickly hit with criticism – and then contacted by social services after someone reported her for child neglect.
TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp defended her 15-year-old son’s unsupervised interrailing trip around Europe because he planned the route himself with his friend
Allsopp’s critics claimed that she would not let a 15-year-old daughter take part in the same trip (pictured: Kirstie Allsopp (C) and her sons Bay and Oscar attend the VIP Preview evening of Hyde Park Winter Wonderland in 2021)
She said though she was envious of her son Oscar (pictured), but ‘at no point’ worried if he was old enough to go travelling across Europe
Ms Allsopp has hit back at Labour Councillor Andy Croy last night after her critisised her saying ‘If we lived in Australia the distance my son travelled would barely have made it out of a region’
She yesterday wrote in Mail On Sunday, telling of how angry she was that a social worker had got in touch saying – ‘Have they nothing better to do?’
And she’s now still being forced to defend herself online.
The TV personality said she’d been overwhelmed with people telling tales of their travels when they were younger than 15 – but she was also still being met with resistance.
She took to X and wrote: ‘Constant chats with mates, and online, about how much we all travelled unaccompanied; to school, to grandparents, to pen pals, to babysitting gigs, now it’s all (shocked face emoji). What the heck has happened? Is this all 24 hour news? Because the stats are very clear, travel is safer than ever.’
Ms Allsopp’s page was quickly flooded with comments from people who travelled longer trips when they were younger – and she reposted their travels.
One wrote: ‘When I was just 12 I travelled alone from London to Sofia in Bulgaria by train. And back again – six days in all.
‘No mobile phones, no internet. My parents reckoned I was up to it. Kirstie Allsopp reckoned the same about her boy and she was right.’
Another said: ‘From 11 I travelled an hour to a school by bus in NI during The Troubles. Regularly we were put off the bus due to bombs / bomb scares and other ‘events’ all over the place. Closed roads etc.
Ms Allsopp defended Oscar saying that he and his friend independently organised the nine-stop trip around Europe
In defence of allowing her young son to travel without parents, Ms Allsopp said she had travelled at the same age
The Location, Location, Location presenter added that ‘if we’re afraid our children will also be afraid, if we let go, they will fly’.
‘I didn’t have a mobile phone. We’d been brought up to be sensible and resilient.’
But one Labour councillor replied to her post – and a debate ensued.
Workingham leader Andy Croy wrote: ‘I imagine thinking these are like Inter-railing. Amazing.’
Ms Allsopp bit back: ‘I’ll take a lot of sh*t on this platform but being attacked by a Wokingham Labour councillor is a step too far (or an SNP or Tory councillor) my son is bright, brave & capable, he wanted to travel, he saved up, he did it safely & sensibly and Andy Croy is well out of order.’
Mr Croy then added: ‘As if a 16 year old is any sort of security. It’s stupid beyond belief. And the “late birthday” schilling is absurd. FFS.’
To which Ms Allsopp added: ‘This man is a public official attacking someone for enabling a young person to safely and legally explore their own continent.
‘If we lived in Australia the distance my son travelled would barely have made it out of a region, never mind the whole way across the country.’
MailOnline has contacted Andy Croy for comment.
The saga kicked off on Monday last week after Ms Allsopp posted to X, telling of her ‘little boy’ returning from his travels with a 16-year-old pal.
She added: ‘I’m proud of him and my loss is nothing compared to his gain and the encyclopaedic knowledge he now has of the differences between one McDonald’s and another.’
Labour Councillor Andy Croy slammed Ms Allsopp online
The Workingham Councillor said it was ‘stupid beyond belief’
The TV personality was also reposting people’s stories of their travels from when they were younger, including solo travel from London to Bulgaria
One person told of hitch hiking to the Rolling Stones at the age of 12
Another told of travelling alone at the age of 11 during the Troubles
One told the mother-of-two on X, formerly Twitter, that ‘if things had gone wrong, you would have taken responsibility and never forgiven yourself’.
Another added: ‘You can’t wrap them up in cotton wool but it can be a dangerous world and 15 is not mature enough for all encounters.’
But it snowballed when someone reported her to social services.
The Mail on Sunday yesterday reveal how, in an extraordinary intervention, a social worker contacted the TV presenter to inform her that a file had been opened after child protection concerns were raised over her youngest child.
To the 52-year-old’s fury, the social worker demanded to know what ‘safeguards’ had been put in place when she allowed Oscar to travel for three weeks on the continent alongside a 16-year-old friend.
Astonishingly, she was told that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), her local council, could keep the file open ‘in case there was another referral and we needed to come to your house and look into this further’.
Speaking exclusively to this newspaper, Ms Allsopp branded the council’s actions ‘Orwellian’ and ‘absolutely outrageous’.
She said that officials had failed to understand she had been targeted by a ‘malicious’ complaint from someone falsely alleging neglect.
‘I just felt sick – absolutely sick,’ she said. ‘Then I was cross. I was very, very cross. It was just so extraordinary. I was in a parallel universe where they were actually taking this seriously.
‘I have broken no law and nothing about allowing my child to travel around Europe is neglectful.’
Last night the shocking case sparked accusations of a ‘nanny state’ and threw a spotlight on how councils can be hoodwinked into opening probes into neglect on the basis of ‘vexatious’ complaints.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke, a Tory MP and former minister, said: ‘This is the nanny state gone mad. Any parent thinking of allowing their teenagers to travel will be terrified by this Orwellian development.
‘Surely, these council officials must have better things to do than intimidate a mother who knows best how she can trust her son?’
Dame Karen Bradley, a Tory MP and the mother of sons aged 18 and 20, added: ‘It seems like the worst kind of box-ticking and a waste of effort and time by council officials who should be focused on children who are at genuine risk.
‘Kirstie knows her son and what he is capable of and took the same decision that many other parents would take for a child who wants to celebrate the end of his exams.’