🪞 SWANK London Ltd.
A Velvet Register of Procedural Misuse and Dignity Theft
No Pencils Upstairs
In Re: Restriction as Routine – Regal’s Observations on Foster Control
📁 Metadata
Filed: 1 August 2025
Reference Code: SWANK-ADDENDUM-0825-ROMEOCONTROL
Filename: 2025-08-01_SWANK_Addendum_Journal_FosterControlSummary.pdf
1-Line Summary:
A child’s handwritten inventory of institutional restriction, deprivation, and power misuse in foster care.
I. WHAT HAPPENED
This page — a segment titled “Foster Talk” — was authored by Regal, age 16, in the quiet of restriction.
It details a list of controlling and, in some cases, developmentally harmful prohibitions placed on him and his siblings, including:
Telling Kingdom (age 10) that he can’t eat because he’s 10
Not allowing them to bring their water bottles upstairs
Not allowing them to bring pencils upstairs
Being told to “be respectful” to siblings without cause
Ambiguous bathroom restrictions (“above the upstairs bathroom rule”)
Each line is quietly devastating — a record of being watched, silenced, denied, and patronised.
II. WHAT THE COMPLAINT ESTABLISHES
These aren't just odd household quirks. They are institutional symptoms:
Nutritional Humiliation: Withholding food based on age isn't child development — it's mockery in procedural form.
Hydration Restriction: Dangerous for children with asthma, particularly those with eosinophilic asthma (as all four siblings are diagnosed).
Stationery Suppression: Banning pencils upstairs violates educational dignity and emotional expression.
Passive Discipline Language: “Being respectful to siblings” — weaponised ambiguity used to pre-frame children as disobedient.
Toilet Surveillance Culture: The bathroom reference, vague but repeated across multiple journal entries, signals privacy erosion and bodily control.
III. WHY SWANK LOGGED IT
Because this entry was never intended for legal scrutiny — which makes it all the more damning.
It is unfiltered, unprompted, and uncoached.
This is how Regal has begun to interpret “care”: a regime of “don’ts,” of power without explanation, of needs ignored, rights denied, and voice erased.
In a system where journaling is banned and pencils are contraband, the very existence of this page is resistance.
We logged it because someone must.
IV. VIOLATIONS
Children Act 1989 – s.22C – Inappropriate and developmentally unsafe placement
ECHR Articles 3, 8, 14 – Degrading treatment, interference with private life, discrimination on the basis of disability and nationality
UNCRC Articles 12, 13, 17, 31 – Failure to respect child voice, education, and recreation rights
Health & Safety Standards – Failure to meet basic hydration and asthma-management responsibilities
Equality Act 2010 – s.20–21 – Indirect discrimination through provision of services
V. SWANK’S POSITION
You cannot teach “respect” by denying dignity.
You cannot foster trust while rationing water and pencils.
You cannot call this child protection.
This document is hereby archived under the Regal Journal Evidentiary Series and will be submitted to the Family Court, CAFCASS, and the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Disability and Arbitrary Detention.
Every line is evidence.
Every stroke of Regal’s pen is a legal act of survival.
Filed in legal reverence and procedural revolt,
Polly Chromatic
Director, SWANK London Ltd.
www.swanklondon.com