Actress Samantha Morton Tells of Childhood Sexual Abuse in Nottingham Care Home

Samantha Morton - twice nominated for an Oscar

Actress Samantha Morton has said she was sexually abused by two residential care workers while in a children's home in Nottingham as a teenager.

Ms Morton said she reported the abuse to authorities in the 1990s but said the men had not been investigated.

She told the Guardian she had spoken out after revelations of abuse in Rotherham and amid an inquiry into allegations of abuse in Nottingham.

Nottinghamshire Police said it had no record of a complaint by Ms Morton. The way police records go missing these day, I'm not surprised.

The Bafta and Golden Globe winning actress, 37, has twice been nominated for an Oscar, for Sweet and Lowdown in 2000 and In America in 2004. She spent much of her childhood in care homes in Nottingham.

She told the newspaper she had been abused at the Red Tiles home, in Bulwell, Nottingham - one of 13 children's homes being investigated by Nottinghamshire County Council following allegations of historical abuse.

Ms Morton said she was 13 when she had reported the abuse, but said "there was no support, no offer of counselling, no wanting to delve deeper".

"Maybe they just assumed I had been abused already, or was being, anyway. A lot of people who abused my friends were people in very, very top jobs within the social services. Now this has to be investigated!

"Nottingham in the 80s was rife with that," she added.

Nottingham regional district has about 1.5 million people
It lies in central England north of Leicester and south of Sheffield

She told the newspaper she was speaking out following a report that detailed the sexual abuse of 1,400 children in Rotherham over 16 years and the "blatant" collective failures to deal with the issue.

The actress called for investigations to be launched in other towns and cities.

"I just wanted to go public with this, to say, we know it's rife but why are there not further investigations into other areas? It isn't just Rotherham, I'm sure it's not just Rotherham," she told the newspaper. So many wounds festering in the UK, they need to be opened and drained before they can heal. A comprehensive and exhaustive public investigation MUST happen, the sooner the better before cultural gangrene sets in.

It comes as an investigation into abuse at a children's care home in Nottingham has been widened to include 12 other establishments, including the Red Tiles home.

Nottinghamshire Police - which is carrying out an historic child abuse investigation into allegations going back several decades at a number of homes - said there was no record of Ms Morton ever making a complaint to the force.

Superintendent Helen Chamberlain told the Guardian she had spoken to Ms Morton about the allegations but they had not amounted to a criminal offence and the actress had not reported them as one.

Nottinghamshire County Council - which was responsible for running the home at the time - said the abuse of vulnerable children in any decade was abhorrent.

It said it welcomed victims speaking out and took all allegations of abuse extremely seriously.

A council spokesman said the authority was hoping to speak to Ms Morton about the allegations.