‘Before, if Xorin had killed someone, I’d’ve said: ‘Right, I’m gonna grass you up.’ Now, it’s like: ‘Mate, I’ll help you bury the body.’ That’s how close we’ve become.” Xorin is 17 and his potential partner in crime is Kelly, his mother – the first teen/parent pair we meet in Kids, Paddy Wivell’s three-part documentary utilising unprecedented access to the work of Coventry children’s services. In a programme that finds some despair and a lot more hope in how errant parents are given second chances, what Kelly is saying is: she’s getting it right this time.
Three years ago, Xorin was moved by CCS from Kelly’s house in Coventry to a residential children’s home in south Wales, for his own safety. An argument at home had ended with Kelly slapping him, and a gang had corralled him into dealing crack and heroin. Now he’s back on a trial basis and, when we initially encounter Kelly, she seems maddeningly complacent. “Who the fuck are you then, girl?” she cheerfully asks a young woman from CCS who has perched, a little gingerly, on the sofa, clipboard on knee. Asked to rate her own parenting, Kelly awards herself a series of nines and tens.
