In the course of the winter we had a call for one of our clients. She was concerned that a person had moved into her garden shed. As it was the winter she did not go into the garden as considerably as inside the summer months. One weekend she decided to clear up all of the fallen apples and pears from the trees. Whilst she was out there she went into the shed and she discovered some blankets and some takeaway food containers. She believed this was very strange but thought that perhaps her teenage son and his buddies had had a sleepover in the shed.
She quizzed her son and he stated that they wouldn’t sleep in there as the roof leaked and there was no electricity. The next thing that happened was a tiny fire had been produced in the entrance to the shed and there had been a lot more blankets and rubbish. She named the Police and they suggested she would get a quicker response if she called us.
We decided to put up a covert camera pointing in the shed to get to the bottom of it. Right after a couple of days the tapes showed a filthy young man going into the shed and generating a fire. He sat huddled up by the fire all night. Our client had in no way seen him just before and as he seemed so young she wanted to help him. The next night a social worker and our client went out into the garden to see if they could help the young man.
He was really polite but looked exhausted. He had run away from his residence and had been sleeping rough in our client’s garden and other gardens inside the neighbourhood. The social worker told him she could put him into care for the night and sort out his situation in the morning. He is now with foster parents and performing well at school.