TROUBLED children have been making more than 250 calls a week from East Lancashire to ChildLine, it was revealed today.

The organisation, which tries to help youngsters escape sexual and physical abuse as well as bullying, was phoned 1,172 times in a four week period monitored earlier in the year.

Releasing a breakdown of figures for the East Lancs postcode area for the first time the organisation's North West director Mr William Kidd said: "On the surface this feels like an awful lot of calls from such a small area."

He said it was impossible to work out how many individual children had phoned because the same individuals could be calling a number of times but added: "Children should not be concerned as we do not know exactly where calls are made from."

ChildLine has consistently received a higher percentage of calls about physical abuse in the North West than other areas of the country over the past five years.

Mr Kidd spoke after a new appeal was launched on ChildLine's fifth birthday to raise £500,000 for their Manchester-based counselling centre.

Although the number of children dealt with by ChildLine North West has increases each year many children are still unable to get through.

BT say that out of the 700 children who try to call ChildLine North West, only half manage to get through to a counsellor, because of a lack of resources.

Last year alone, more than 1,200 children rang after suffering various forms of physical abuse from being beaten with belts, sticks and bats, to being kicked and burnt.

Others called about issues as varied as relationships and anxieties about examinations.

ChildLine North West's national freephone number is 0800 1111, and lines are open from 3.30 - 9.30pm Monday to Friday. Calls are automatically transferred to the Manchester centre, and at other times they go through to the 24-hour service in London.

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