Samantha Morton thinks it is an "absolute miracle" she's still alive

She told the Sunday Times Style magazine: "It's a miracle I'm here talking to you today.

"The older I get, and the more I reflect, the more I'm like, it's an absolute miracle I'm not dead.

"Knowing friends who have died or taken their own life due to the trauma, the effects of it...

"Every day I read about another child who has died unnecessarily, as far as I believe, due to neglect, violence and abuse.

"Situations where the child has no rights and can't defend itself - and then, years later, you've got the effects of that trauma that has such a negative impact on the adult. Not only does the individual suffer, but society suffers."

The 48-year-old actress - who has three children with husband Harry Holm - feels she has a "duty of care" to speak out about the struggles faced by children in care and stands by her call for councils who fail to prevent deaths of those young people to face manslaughter charges.

She said: "I feel that I'm allowed an opinion as an actor because I have experience of these things.

"Everyone's called a celebrity now. I don't feel like [one], but people don't want celebrities. They're fed up with being told what to do, people standing on their soapbox. But I come at it from a different angle - from experience and compassion and a desire to highlight and educate, not finger-wag and tell people what they need to do or believe.

"I genuinely think that it is my right [to speak on it]. It's not just my right, it is my duty of care. I have to say something. I can't not say anything. So it isn't just a compulsion, it's what I've got to do to be me. It's common sense, like breathing is common sense."

The In America actress - who reported being abused to social workers and police, but neither took sufficient action - doesn't feel stringent enough checks were carried out on residential care workers when she was young.

She said: "When I was little, you didn't need a police check to work with children and anybody would just rock up and work in residential homes. And yes, there were paedophiles.

"There were people that just took their s*** out on kids, you know, not understanding that a lot of kids are there not because they're all in trouble with the police or, you know, it's because they can't be fostered.

"Their parents have died, or their parents were in hospital with cancer, or whatever."