Protection viewers spot 'holes' in ITV crime drama
Protection viewers have said they have spotted 'holes' in the new ITV drama that have left them baffled.
The series focuses on witness protection and sees DI Liz Nyles (Siobhan Finneran) looking after a little girl whose parents are killed before her dad can testify against a drug baron. But as episode two got under way, many viewers suggested it wasn't believable having just one person care for an important witness to the murders.
It was also revealed that the girl had access to a tablet and was secretly communicating with someone while she was supposed to be in hiding, which fans pointed out was a serious oversight.
Episode two, which aired on Monday, 17 March, took place in the aftermath of the McLennan family murders, with DI Nyles having taken their daughter Amy (Tilly Kaye) into their home.
One tense scene saw the detective and Amy out in the car when masked men started chasing them. Terrified, they drove to a shopping centre where they tried to get lost in the crowd as the men pursued them.
In another scene Amy was seen sneaking a look at a tablet that she had tucked in a drawer. She later started messaging somebody and although she didn't reveal her location she did share some details about her situation.
Several viewers pointed out that it was unrealistic that the detective was looking after Amy alone, and that she'd have taken her out in her car without any back up.
One said on X: "I really want to like this series but come on! Like they would let one single officer just take the kid to her house and ferry her about totally on her own."
Someone else commented: "So the Protection team around Amy is just DI Liz? FGS do better and give her back up." "Unbelievable isn't it?" posted someone else. "Whatever happened to child safeguarding?" they added.
Read more: Siobhan Finneran
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ITV Protection fans 'done' with new drama minutes in after 'brutal' scene (Wales Online, 2 min read)
One fan claimed it was "sheer insanity". "There's clear safeguarding rules surrounding children and what Liz is doing with Amy is totally ignoring those!" they wrote.
Somebody else suggested Liz should've booked a hotel for Amy to stay in "rather then letting her stay in her home, it's too risky".
Others took issue with her being able to use a tablet while her location was being hidden.
"I don't think the police would let a girl in protection hang on to her tablet," one person pointed out on X. Another agreed: "Surely anyone with half a brain would've taken the girls tablet off her to keep her safe."
"This is full of holes… not sure if I can keep watching, it's SO irritating," one viewer remarked.
However, others insisted they wouldn't let such issues put them off watching the gripping drama.
"Totally unrealistic but totally enjoying Protection," explained one.
Protection returns at 9pm on ITV on Sunday, 23 March.
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USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
Reunited, a family bands together to care for a lost sister's kids
Chapter 3 | Reunited, a family bands together to care for a lost sister's kids A tragedy means Amy must take in her nieces and nephews. She and her sisters fight to give them a better childhood than they had. The last time Kay K called the older sister who raised her, she asked for help. 'I hated she had been through so much,' Marlena, 44, said. 'She would go from foster homes to the street to self medicating and being mentally unstable.' The 31-year-old was pregnant with her tenth child and wanted to straighten out her life. But she disappeared after that call. A few months later, her remains were found rolled in a rug on an overgrown Mississippi hillside. 'I know I can't save the world,' Marlena said. 'But I tried to save her.' Kay K's four sisters had hoped taking in eight of her kids would be temporary. That she'd stabilize enough to care for her children and be an aunt to theirs. But now, it was up to them to raise the nieces and nephews, ages 1 to 13, alongside their own daughters and sons. To protect the privacy of sensitive health and social information of minors too young to consent to having it appear online, USA TODAY used first names for adults and middle names for kids. USA TODAY does not name survivors of sexual assault. An estimated 2.4 million American kids are being raised by relatives, not their parents. Most 'kinship families,' or "grandfamilies," are formed suddenly, without planning. Grandmas, aunts, brothers and cousins take in young relatives amid crisis. When parents die from car wrecks or overdoses. When mom is jailed or loses the job that pays for rent. Sometimes, government child welfare agencies take kids from parents if social workers decide they can't provide basic needs and safety. An update to federal law in 2018 re-emphasized that agencies should provide the same assistance to relatives that is given to strangers who foster or adopt. Kids taken into foster care have better outcomes when raised within their family. Yet not all relatives are offered help to do so. And those who seek aid could instead be deemed unfit to parent. Amy, 37, had never planned to raise eight kids, four of whom are Kay K's. She is determined to keep the family together despite broken government promises and America's blind spot for kin caregivers. She doesn't want her nieces and nephews to lose family bonds like she did by growing up with strangers in foster care, living hundreds of miles from her sisters. 'If we'd had a family member that thought like that, we woulda never had to go to the shelter,' Amy said. 'It's a lonely life.' Kinship caregivers keep family together but don't get help they need A Mississippi couple took in a relative's kids to keep them out of the foster care system. They say parents like them deserve more support. Trying Kay K's sisters reported her to child welfare officials for neglect several times but saw no intervention. Marlena called the state hotline instead, after seeing her infant nephew left playing alone with a cup of water and an uncovered outlet. Kay K's three children went to a foster home in a city an hour away. Their mother had a breakdown and was committed. It was almost a year before Marlena convinced the children's caseworker to grant a family visit in a state office. She was shocked to see they were 'a mess.' The baby's diaper was full, and she was 'raw from front to back.' Makay, 4, had bright white scars on her head, neck and hand from severe burns sustained while in foster care. Soon after, a caseworker called on a Saturday and asked, Can you get the kids today? They arrived with a small duffel bag of clothes. Marlena took the girls. Amy cared for the boy. An official told the family that they could become licensed foster parents if they wanted to receive monthly assistance payments for the kids' care. Today, Mississippi pays between $750 and $5,600 a month to foster parents or group home companies, depending on age and therapeutic needs. The sisters decided they didn't need the cash or the headache of getting licensed. Their own experience with 'the system' as kids had been rough. Anyway, they were too busy with college and family to attend the infrequent, mandatory classes. 'I wasn't there for the money,' Marlena said. 'I was there for the kids.' Still, it would have helped. Marlena, a registered nurse, worked nights at the hospital five days a week. Amy was in nursing school and working part-time jobs. They lived near or below the federal poverty line for families with so many kids. When the kids needed clothes, or the grocery budget was a little tight, relatives, members of their church or a community nonprofit would help. Sometimes, after repeated calls, the kids' caseworker would take Amy to Walmart to buy necessities, like a car seat or diapers for a newborn. Around the same time, Mississippi officials had to change how the state foster care system handled relatives in response to a 2006 settlement that is still under court monitoring. The original lawsuit was filed on behalf of thousands of former foster youth. One of their complaints was that social workers placed kids with relatives without background checks and home-safety reviews. Because relatives weren't put through the licensing process, they had to care for children without the aid given to strangers who foster kids. Sometimes, case workers closed cases after a relative agreed to take in a child, lowering the official number of kids in state care by shifting the responsibility to unsupported families. Researchers call this diversion tactic 'hidden foster care.' Amy and Marlena were caught in an awkward transition as Mississippi began to change state policy. A couple years after taking in their nieces and nephews, Marlena received a letter telling her the kids would be taken unless she attended a training session in two days. They weren't licensed foster parents so they could not have their nieces and nephews. The child welfare agency issued a removal order a few days before Christmas. A judge, however, sided with the sisters. He said they needed to be given reasonable time to complete the training and home inspections. It took months, but they did just that. Now that they were licensed foster parents, the sisters began receiving foster board payments, which turned out to be less than the rates they saw posted. The kids stayed with family. For now. Licensed Many kinship foster parents say being licensed is a hassle and a risk. When the state has custody of kids, caseworkers and birth parents must sign off on decisions about education and health care. Legally, foster parents, including relatives, have the same power as babysitters. Often, each child has a separate caseworker, who is supposed to visit at least once a month. Sometimes other officials do, too. And then foster parents must schedule their lives around calls and case review meetings. Social workers seem to nitpick the kind of child safety locks on cabinets, how old kids must be to sleep in a top bunk and the rating of a fire extinguisher kept in the kitchen. Since 2023, federal rules have given states flexibility on some of these details when licensing relatives, but not all of them use it. As state officials placed more of her sister's kids with Amy, their apartment no longer met licensing standards for the number of children in each room. The paradox was frustrating. 'You requested I take in my niece and nephews,' she said. Being in the child welfare system also means kids could be taken away at any moment. About two years after starting to raise her sister's kids, Amy was told her license was at risk because of cockroaches at her apartment. Amy provided proof that the property manager had sprayed repeatedly at her request. But because of neighbors' uncleanliness, the bugs kept coming back. Still, caseworkers terminated her license and removed the kids – biological and fostered. To Amy, it was the same kind of faulty premise as the first time caseworkers removed her from home as a child. 'You're taking my children because I'm poor,' she said. 'I'm in public housing and there's roaches running around here. That's everywhere you go, pretty much. That's something you really don't have control over.' Luckily, state officials let the kids stay with an aunt. Amy lawyered up and got them back within two weeks. Stability Soon after, Amy bought her first house, moving in with her husband and seven kids. The 1,300-square-foot home had tan brick and four bedrooms. A garage was converted into extra living space. Three chest freezers lined the wall under the dining room window, stocked with food for the large sat on a large lot in a quiet neighborhood outside of town with mature trees and green lawns. An eighth child moved in about a year later. And Kay K's ninth kid stayed there after birth before being taken in by another relative. For years, the kids built family memories at this house. Makay, now 16, remembers the birthday when she came home from the skating rink with her friends to find a tent filling the living room. "We had pillows in there and drinks and all our snacks and all that," she said. For another birthday, she vaguely remembers Kay K, her biological mom, came to the house. She's not sure which birthday it was. She can't picture it. 'I don't really remember a lot about her,' she said. 'Amy is my mom. I really love her. 'She's been taking care of me and providing for me,' she said. 'Her and my dad have been trying to guide me.'Amy wanted to adopt her nieces and nephews. They deserved stability. After years of repeated delays, a state worker finally filed the court paperwork Amy had waited on. It wasn't what she expected. State officials had decided to terminate Kay K's parental rights for one child, but not the rest. At the time, she was alive and caseworkers hoped she might one day be prepared to parent. Amy decided not to waste more time under state supervision. The court agreed to release the kids from foster care, letting them live with Amy as their legal guardian. Caregiving This spring, Amy parked outside the garage-turned-office where she works seasonally as a tax preparer. Before going in, she planned the monthly budget in a notebook propped on her steering wheel. She would have to skip buying a costly lupus medication and risk an episode because the state had recently terminated the family's Medicaid coverage. Two teens who needed therapy might have to wait. It was on Amy's to-do list to visit the local office to sort out the issue. A few minutes after settling at her work desk, Amy received a call from Marlena about their mom. The woman had gone to the county courthouse to pick up routine paperwork. But the visit triggered her paranoid schizophrenia and she began yelling, making threats. She was detained and taken to the local hospital. Marlena said their mom would be sent to an out-of-town psychiatry facility unless she could quickly secure power of attorney. She needed Amy's help, including to make sure their mom's home was locked up while she was away. More: The caregiving crisis is real. USA TODAY wants to hear from you about how to solve it. Amy's phone dinged often. Her husband checking on how she was doing. The teen twins asking for a ride to get their nails done. Her oldest son, living on his own, talking about trouble finding work that paid enough to cover rent. The high school called about one of the boys. A resource officer had misinterpreted an autistic reaction, escalating a communication difference into a chase down the hall. Amy left work early to try to talk school officials out of suspending him. Home Back at home, dinner prep started. Amy dumped a package of cornbread mix into a plastic bowl while Bertram, 15, waited to add milk and stir. Lamar, 13, but just as tall as his cousin-brother, waited near the stove for water to boil so he could pour in three boxes of spaghetti. The teen twins had left early for a hair appointment. They had to look Gucci for their 18th birthday the next day and high school graduation in a few weeks. Ronald walked in from work and gave her a hug before going to shower and change. Makay, 16, and Nicole, 10, leaned on the kitchen island as they watched Nathaniel, 5, ham it up, waving his arms with oven mitts up to his elbows. We didn't have this growing up, Amy said when reflecting on the kids. The closeness. The dependability. Somebody to talk to. To lean on. 'I tell them all the time,' Amy said. 'You don't have anybody else. Rely on your brothers and sisters.' Amy was proud of the kids. They still had struggles. They were kids after all. Kids who had been through a lot in their short lives. She tried to pass on what she'd learned in college and therapy about brain development, healthy relationships and healing from trauma. Her kids have more stability than Amy had known. At about Nathaniel's age, a cop and caseworker took her from home into foster care. By Nicole's age, she had spent years apart from her sisters and had lived in many shelters and strangers' homes. She had just reunited with her family at Lamar's age, trying to build bonds with people she barely knew and starting to care for a nephew. Makay is a little younger than Amy was when she moved out of her sister's house to live on her own with her infant son and to attend college. Amy was glad to see her children have kid-sized problems: school gossip, playful digs at each other and requests for more snacks they could sell at school for a profit. 'That's all we ever want, if you have children: Them being able to be successful in life,' Amy said. 'That's my ultimate goal. That's what makes me happy. When they succeed, I succeed in what I was meant to do.' Amy sat in her computer chair and leaned back as she watched her kids spoon spaghetti onto paper plates. They all sat at the folding table or the island, eating together. Caring for Kin, Chapter 3: Rebuilding | Earlier: Chapter 1: Breaking | Chapter 2: Surviving This article was produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism's 2025 Child Welfare Impact Reporting Fund. Jayme Fraser is an investigative data reporter at USA TODAY. She can be reached on Signal or WhatsApp at (541) 362-1393 or by emailing jfraser@
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
'Lovely' pub that's opened in former home of Coronation Street's Rovers Return
A new pub opened in Manchester this month and it used to be home to the Rovers Return pub on the Coronation Street set. The Stables Tavern, which was also once a stable, is a pub 'built for locals' as well as anyone who is seeking 'the simple joy of a good drink in good company.' From beers to cocktails and even a snack menu, this new Manchester pub has plenty to offer. The pub owners explain on its website that it's 'a historic tavern reimagined in the heart of Manchester centre, where everyone is welcomed like a regular, whether it's your first visit or your fiftieth.' The Stables Tavern on Grape Street is steeped in history: 'On the corner of Bonded Warehouse sits the Tavern that fed Manchester's Industrial Revolution. 'Nestled in the heart of St John's stands the Stable's Tavern, the heart of the St John's industrial age and the watering hole for workers, merchants and radicals alike.' The Manc shared the pub's connection to the iconic ITV soap and what visitors can expect: 'Inside, punters will find multiple beer taps with local beers, served with complimentary bowls of crisps as well as a menu of pub snacks like handmade sausage rolls and local pies.' With an outdoor terrace and a parlour area plus a bar, the pub has lots of space for customers to enjoy sipping their pints. Despite only opening on Friday, June 6, the pub has already received some praise from customers on Google Reviews. One customer said: 'What an amazing venue!! Thought it looked great on social media but I was blown away when we visited. Staff were brilliant and really friendly and we even got a free pint each! 'Pies were delicious and the rest of the menu looks just as good. The pub is dog friendly as well. Can't wait to go back and bring the dog to our new favourite local.' Recommended reading: Bolton's highest-rated pub has 'great atmosphere' and 'nice prices' Prettiest village pubs in Bolton according to locals Cosiest pubs to enjoy in Bolton as recommended by readers Another commented: 'Such a lovely new pub! Really loved the vibe of the place and all the staff were so lovely! 'The free pint for opening day was also such a nice touch, thanks for a lovely day guys! Will definitely be back'. Someone else said: 'Attended the opening of stables tavern and wow what a space - so beautifully designed and a free pint on arrival! 'Definitely going to be my new after work pint spot. Would highly recommend to anyone! Also possibly the best steak pie I've ever tasted! 😍'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Love Island's Georgia Harrison: 'I re-read my MBE letter three times'
The sexual abuse campaigner and former reality star Georgia Harrison has told the BBC she is "honoured" to be receiving an MBE. Harrison, 30, will be awarded for her efforts to tackle violence against women and girls, which includes working with the government on the Online Safety Act in 2023. She says she feels "a responsibility to help" the many women who are victims of crimes such as intimate image abuse and deepfaking. Her ex-partner Stephen Bear was jailed for 21 months in 2023 after uploading sexual footage of himself and Harrison to OnlyFans filmed without her consent. Harrison, who is being awarded her MBE as part of the King's Birthday Honours, said she had to re-read the letter she received from King Charles "three times" as she "just couldn't believe it". "It's definitely not something I anticipated and it feels nice to have my work recognised because with campaigning sometimes you feel like a lot goes unnoticed," she told the BBC. The former reality star appeared on ITV shows such as The Only Way is Essex in 2017 and Love Island in 2018, where she entered the villa as a bombshell and gained nationwide fame. It was during 2019 that she entered MTV's The Challenge, where she met fellow reality star Bear. The pair dated on and off for a few months, with Harrison discovering in December 2020 that the now 35-year-old Bear had uploaded intimate CCTV footage of them to streaming service OnlyFans without her consent. She subsequently reported the crime and Bear was sentenced after being found guilty of voyeurism and discussing private, sexual photographs and films. Harrison was then awarded compensation in a damages claim and said she would donate some of the £207,900 to charity. She says she often feels a "responsibility to help" as she worries about the increase of social media influencers fuelling misogyny and sexism. Harrison, who is currently expecting her first child, said: "I'd be scared to have a teenager right now, being completely honest, I really would be terrified". "We've seen with the rise of Andrew Tate and some men thinking the thing to do with women is to mistreat them and think they can do what they want with them," she said. She added she feels the need to let women know, "they deserve to be treated fairly, they deserve consent and the right to their own bodies". A recent poll of teachers in the UK found three in five believe social media use has had a negative effect on behaviour in schools - with Tate being named as a reason by a number of teachers in the poll. Harrison says she has been into some schools recently to watch consent workshops with primary school age children, describing them as "brilliant". She hopes that these type of lessons will have an impact for the next generation. "I'd like to think by the time my child gets to the age where consent becomes an issue, things are going to be a lot better, because we are doing something to educate around consent and that's something that's never really been done before in this generation," she added. Harrison says "on a positive note" women have told her case and "the strength you found" has encouraged them to take their perpetrators to court for causes of rape, domestic abuse and intimate image abuse. Since Bear's conviction in 2022, she has campaigned to increase the support for women and girls who have faced similar crimes to her by working on the Online Safety Act and as part of the Women and Equalities Committee. She says she has been working with the committee on improving timescales for women who want to report crimes against them - as currently they only have six months after a crime has taken place to tell the police about it. "It took me about four months to even realise a crime had been committed to me when it happened so its scary to think, had I been notified a few months later, I may not have had the right to justice. "It should be a lot easier for women out there," she added. Harrison says she has also been receiving more and more messages from victims of deepfakes, which are videos, pictures or audio clips made with AI to look or sound real. There have been recent concerns about schoolchildren using apps to distribute AI-generated deepfake content, despite the practice being illegal. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) - a UK-based charity partly funded by tech firms - said in February there had been 245 reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse in 2024 compared with 51 in 2023, a 380% increase. "I think [deepfake] technology is getting a lot more impressive and easier to access," Harrison said. Earlier this year, the government announced laws to tackle the threat of child sexual abuse images being generated by AI, which include making it illegal to possess, create, or distribute AI tools designed to create such material. Georgia Harrison launches sexual consent campaign Harrison says revenge porn experience like 'grief' Stephen Bear ordered to pay £27k over sex tape
