But at 12.40pm the following day, Allsopp reportedly received a text message from a social worker from “Kensington and Chelsea children [sic] services”, which stated: “I am wanting [sic] to have a conversation with you re a referral we have received in relation to your son.”
She said: “I immediately rang the number and said ‘I cannot tell you how angry this makes me’.
“I was very agitated. I said I could not be more upset. How on earth have you got time for this? How on earth have you got the resources? Where the hell did you get my telephone number?”
The social worker then asked the presenter what ”safeguards you put in place for your son’s travel”.
She was later called by a second RBKC official who insisted there would be “different views” on the decision to allow Oscar to go travelling, according to The Mail on Sunday.
‘Horrible to hear’
Allsopp was told to contact the council’s data protection team when she asked for the file to be deleted.
She said: “For me that was the sucker punch – the idea this file might continue existing,” she said.
“What [the official] said to me was ‘If in six months there was another referral and we needed to come to your house and look into this further, it would be important that we had kept a note of the first referral’.
“That was the Orwellian moment. The fact it was maliciously done wasn’t coming home to her.”
Oscar added: “When Mum let me go interrailing she was probably like ‘I’m giving him a great experience, he’ll enjoy it’.
“Then to get called and have someone claim you were neglecting your child is pretty disgraceful and must be horrible to hear.”
A RBKC spokesman told The Mail on Sunday: “Safeguarding children is an absolute priority. We take any referral we receive very seriously and we have a statutory responsibility for children under 18 years of age.”
Sir Alec Shelbrooke, a Tory MP and former minister, told the paper: “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 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.”