Kirsty Allsopp was reported to social services for allowing her 15-year-old son to go on a train tour of Europe with a friend, but she reversed her decision.
The “Location, Location, Location” presenter said her son Oscar had travelled to Europe this summer with a 16-year-old friend, but after he returned home she was contacted by a social worker to inform him a file had been opened after child protection concerns were raised.
In a lengthy defence on his Instagram, Mr Alsop said he never expected social services to get involved.
She said: “I knew that in the UK and the US we were becoming a more risk-averse culture. My time in Switzerland taught me a lot. There, just like in Japan, children walk to school on their own, are encouraged to learn to be independent early and are trusted to make wise choices.”
While she knew her decision to send her young teenager on a trip to Europe unaccompanied would raise some eyebrows, she said she hoped “the silver lining in this dark cloud is that everyone stops to think about the freedoms they had as children, and ask themselves what harm might come not from those freedoms, but from the restrictions and fears we are imposing on our children.”
She previously told the Mail on Sunday she was “sickened” by the phone call from the council and became “very angry” afterwards.
Ms Allsopp tweeted on Monday that Oscar had returned from a nine-day train trip around Europe, telling X she was “proud of him”, adding: “If we are scared, our kids will be scared. If we let go, our kids will fly away.”
But while some have praised her for her move, she has also been criticized for allowing a teenage girl to travel alone.
Ms Allsopp said the social worker “wanted to know what safety measures were in place for her son's travel”, but she became “furious” and told the worker it wasn't her business and she would hang up the phone.
The TV presenter said authorities had no idea she was targeted by someone who made false allegations of neglect, and she was not told how she was referred or who made the introduction.
A file has been opened on Oscar and his local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), said it could remain open “in case there is another enquiry and we need to go to your home to investigate further”.
She told the Mail: “For me, the idea that this file might continue to exist was a blindside.”
“What (staff) said to me was, 'If you get another referral in six months and we need to go into your home and investigate further, it's good that you have a record of the first referral,'” he said.
“It was a truly Orwellian moment. She couldn't comprehend the fact that it was done with malicious intent.”
An RBKC spokesman told the paper: “Child protection is an absolute priority. We take every referral we receive very seriously and have statutory responsibility for children under the age of 18.”
They said it was “standard practice” for the records to be kept until the child's 25th birthday.
