Down-trodden single parent Carol works in a phone warehouse – from which she steals phones which she sells to a Chinese girl fence called Ying – gets no help with her lazy, vicious sons from her useless ex-husband Kieran. When one of the boys, Dean, attacks his girlfriend Tracey, he and his brother Terry kick an innocent onlooker to death. Carol finds blood on their clothes which they explain as being obtained in a fight and when the police call she initially covers for the boys. Ultimately she learns from Tracey what actually happened but Kieran brutally advises her to keep quiet. Carol disagrees and, realizing that the boys will turn into copies of their father, knows what she must do.