There seems no reason to think that the two girls and their mother were lying, Ron, and in the light of your comment that "social services suck and people are not always treated with the respect and care they deserve" it seems reasonable to accept their word.

There are plenty of UK media sources which are pretty suspect, as muich so as it appears that Fox is - but the BBC News is a pretty reliable source. If it carried a similar report of something like that happening to a visitor to this country I would be inclined to believe it. But of course, as with any news story, belief is to some extent provisional.

After all, even a reported mugging might turn out to be a fabrication or a distortion of what actually happened.