It is not widely known, amongst people who grew up in care before 1989, that we
owe our rights to access our child care files to a fellow care leaver. With legal help, Graham took the
council to court for negligence and sought access to his file as part of this process.
He lost his initial case but kept trying. Eventually, the legal case ended up in the
European Court of Human Rights in 1989. This time, he won.