She thought Gemma could be trusted. She thought she was a good girl.*
Riotous events like Gemma’s are increasingly common and have become known as “Skins parties”. They take their name from the Channel Four drama Skins, about appallingly behaved adolescents.
The producers have even set up MySpace and Bebo pages for the characters, and web-only mini episodes have been screened.
Now – surprise, surprise – youngsters, like Gemma, and Rachel Bell, 17, from Tyneside, are following suit in real life. Rachel, you may recall, was the girl who placed an open invitation on MySpace last year for what she called a: “Let’s trash the average, family-sized house disco party.” And they did.
Hardly a week seems to go by without similar stories emerging. Chippenham, Wiltshire; the Pennine village of Facit, near Rochdale, Lancashire; Croydon, South London – just a few of the other places where “Skins” parties have left a trail of destruction recently. And all decent middle-class kids.
*If Britain ever needed the BNP now is the time.