"What were they supposed to do? Make up some speculative set of excuses, or suppress the story? "
They should use the basic principles of journalism. Who, What, When, Where and Why. They failed to get answers. The article was slanted only toward one perspective and did not ask some of the questions - or give indication that they investigated further. While it is true that the spokesperson did not give a lot of answers, there appears to be no further attempt to dig further. What about the hospital, the doctors, the "orphanage"? The BBC took "no" for an answer and did not investigate.

The BBC article makes an issue that they were given new clothes and forced to take a shower. The summation to the reader is that their clothes were forcibly removed and as some Mudcatters have surmised, they were given a full body cavity search. Even though the article does not state that, the writer has allowed the reader to make assumptions because they failed to gather more information.

Should they have surpressed the story? Perhaps! At least until they could gather more information. What ever happend to investigative journalism?   The writer has played to the passions of Brits that have distrust of the USA anyway, and for those in this country that know what a mess our medical and social services systems can be.

The BBC is no different than FOX and all the other media outlets who are trying to capture the ears and eyes of viewers and readers. It is about making money - and to do that, you need to get there first and capture attention - the facts come second.

Suppose I was involved in fender bender and I felt that the police were not sympathetic to my case. If I contacted the BBC and said that I was a victim of police brutality and that I was strip searched, fingerprinted and forced to take a mug shot. The BBC contacts the police who have no commet, but the BBC goes ahead and prints my side of the story. Instead of using words like "alleged" or "reportedly", they come up with a story that reads as if my words are the absolute truth. Would that be responsible journalism?

"No attention appears to have been taken the the INDIVIDUAL circumstances that applied here "
Including you Jacqui. With all due respect, you are reacting to the story on only one level. It is NOT just individual circumstances that need to be examined - it is, as you pointed out, the system that causes such events. THAT is where the story failed to be accurate, and THAT is exactly what Fox News excels at. It is not journalism. It is not "fair and balanced". The BBC, by lack of doing their homework, have followed the same practice. The reader reacts with emotion instead of really examing the issue.

"I would be concerned for any child sent through this system, is that these two girls were put on an automatic track, rather than being treated as individuals."
That might be the REAL story here. Why are people put on an automatic track? Part of it might be that it is has become standard practice because problems dealing with sheer volume. It is a huge problem, and one that is not resolved by of knee jerk reactions that result in more layers of government regulations and endless procedures. The INDIVIDUALS continue to get lost, in new and imaginative ways.

The story of these two girls and their mother is treated as an "incident", and people are reacting to the sensational details of the event - which may or may not be one families reaction to the events - and not the problems that may or may not be behind it. It sends up a smoke screen that causes more knee jerk reactions and the problem never gets fixed.