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Sincere thanks to all who follow this blog or have listened to Series 1 of the podcast. We are immensely grateful for the solidarity and support we have received from friends, family, church and charities. A campaign is coalescing: The Lizzie Gladwell Crisis Campaign.

In November 2024, the highly-respected Ann Craft Trust released a report entitled ‘Exploitation Of Adults With Cognitive Impairment In England‘. As you can imagine, that report contains many relevant quotes, but one which captures may facets of our crisis is:

“Too often, our systems and service responses are overlooking cases of adult exploitation, particularly when adults are perceived to have ‘capacity’ for making ‘unwise choices’. This report highlights that coercion limits choice, that adults can be groomed and controlled, and we need to look again at systems and powers to understand and effectively safeguard people.”

The content below is the first version of a manifesto for change as the Lizzie Gladwell Crisis expands its focus from what has happened to us and Lizzie to the fact that this is occurring at all, both here and across the country. I welcome any comments or suggestions.

The Lizzie Gladwell Crisis – A Manifesto for Justice and Safeguarding

Introduction

We call this The Lizzie Gladwell Crisis not only because of what has happened to our beautiful Lizzie, but because Lizzie’s story exposes a national safeguarding failure. This crisis speaks of a dangerous gap in adult safeguarding policy, a chasm that countless vulnerable young adults are falling through.

This manifesto is written with fierce determination and hearts that refuse to be silenced. It is not a cry of anger but one of unwavering love, unwilling to stand by while vulnerable young people remain unprotected by the very systems meant to safeguard them.

What Happened to Lizzie Must Not Happen Again

For our beloved Lizzie, and countless others like her, the passage into adulthood isn’t a celebratory step towards independence but a precipice of profound danger. Although surrounded by caring families and friends, young people with lifelong cognitive impairments, such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), face a significant shift in their legal standing. While neurotypical individuals navigate this phase with newfound adult rights, those with cognitive impairments, still developing in understanding and reasoning, lose vital legal safeguards at eighteen, leaving them highly vulnerable.

This is a rallying cry for every young person whose innocence is mistaken for weakness, whose trust is exploited, and whose fundamental right to protection is tragically abandoned at the arbitrary stroke of midnight on their eighteenth birthday. This represents a shocking chasm in adult safeguarding.

We have witnessed the unthinkable: a vulnerable young person, still a child in spirit, taken from her family by predatory removal, isolated, subjected to manipulation, and held captive by deceit. We have endured the agonising reality of statutory agencies entrusted with safeguarding turning a blind eye, dismissing our pleas, and even, by their inaction, condoning the very exploitation they are meant to prevent. Two years of hell, of being ignored, dismissed and obstructed, have only solidified our resolve. The passage of time does not diminish the crime; it exposes the damning impotence of a system that has failed.

The Lizzie Gladwell Crisis campaign is born of this love, this pain, and this unyielding determination.

We believe:

• That chronological age must not trump cognitive vulnerability in decisions of care and safeguarding.
• That family is not the enemy, and concerns voiced in love should be investigated, not dismissed.
• That predation thrives in the silence of unchecked systems, and statutory bodies must be held to account.

We demand:

• Recognition of the Chronological-Functional Gap: Legal adulthood must not mean the withdrawal of protection. Safeguarding policies must acknowledge cognitive age and functional capacity, not just legal status. Every young person with FASD or cognitive impairment deserves protection tailored to their needs, not simply their date of birth.

• Accountability and Action from Agencies: We will challenge systemic attitudes and insist that statutory agencies fulfil their duty of care. Manipulative perpetrators’ pre-emptive lies against the victim’s family and support network must not be accepted without corroboration, nor should cries for help be dismissed. Families speaking out in love must be heard. Not dismissed. Not silenced. Not punished. We demand a system that actively protects, rather than inadvertently enables, exploitation.

• Elevated Awareness and Understanding of FASD: We will serve as a solidarity movement, partnering with FASD charities to raise the profile of this lifelong neurodevelopmental impairment. Agencies and professionals must receive compulsory training in FASD and related conditions, to identify vulnerability before it’s exploited, not after.

• Solidarity for All Victims: We stand with all young people with cognitive impairments who lose meaningful protection and safeguarding simply because they have turned eighteen. We will amplify other voices calling for change, other victims of exploitation resulting from this dangerous chronological-functional gap.

Lizzie deserves her freedoms, her rights, her truth. And so does every young person like her. We invite you to stand with us. To speak the truth others are too afraid to name. To protect those whose innocence makes them targets. To insist on a better system, where love is not a liability, and safeguarding does not have an expiry date. Join us. For Lizzie. For all.

Thank you for reading. If you have any insights, comments or advice, please feel free to add them below.