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Articles / Sisters who were separated when their father murdered their mother with a hammer

« on: January 12, 2026, 06:49:43 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15454357/Sisters-separated-father-murdered-mother-hammer-Wales-reunite.html

Sisters who were separated when their father murdered their mother with a hammer in Wales reunite after 50 years

By LETTICE BROMOVSKY, NEWS REPORTER

Published: 00:13, 12 January 2026 | Updated: 01:51, 12 January 2026

Two sisters whose lives were torn apart after their father murdered their mother with a hammer have been reunited more than 50 years later after tracking each other down on Facebook.  Theresa Fazzani, 59, and her 57-year-old sister Janet were just children when their mother Helen Barnes was brutally killed in December 1973 at the family home in Newport, Wales.  The sisters say the trauma of that day and the decades of forced separation that followed, shaped their entire lives.  Helen's husband Malcolm Barnes murdered her with a two-pound hammer before telling the children she was 'sleeping'.  He then bundled the four girls aged eight, five, three and two into a car and drove them on a five-day journey to John O'Groats.  Five days later Barnes confessed to the killing. Although sentenced to life imprisonment, he served just nine years.  In the aftermath, the sisters' lives diverged dramatically. Theresa later discovered Barnes was not her biological father and was sent to live with her real father in London. Janet and the two younger girls stayed together and were adopted in Wales.  For more than five decades, Theresa and Janet had no contact at all.  That changed in July 2025, when Theresa, now a mental health counsellor living on the Isle of Wight, decided to search for her lost sisters through a Facebook group that helps reunite families.  Within 48 hours, the group had traced Janet and the others.  Since reconnecting, the sisters have visited each other's homes and now speak almost daily.  Theresa, a mental health counsellor from the Isle of Wight said: 'I remember walking into the room and seeing my mum on the bed, and Malcolm said she was asleep and that we needed to get in the car.  The next thing I knew, we were in Scotland. I was frightened and confused when I found out our mother was murdered, it was hard to understand when I was so young.  I couldn't understand that Malcolm wasn't my father but was the father of my sisters.  My real dad was horrible, and he wouldn't let me contact my sisters, or even talk about them at all, it was brutal.  I thought about reaching out to my sisters so many times, but I was so anxious and scared of rejection.  I finally decided to reach out to them because I thought, "I'm 60 soon and I don't want to have any regrets".  Since finding them through Facebook, I've been to Wales to meet them all, and Janet and I have visited each other's houses.  The first time we met up was so overwhelming, it was like I'd got a missing part of me back.  Me and Janet are never off the phone to each other. There's hardly a day that goes by that we don't chat to each other.'

Theresa and Janet had an ordinary upbringing in their early childhood, and said they saw no signs their mother was in danger.  'I have no idea why Malcolm murdered my mum', Theresa said. 'We never saw him be violent to her, and he was never violent to us.'

As the events happened when the sisters were so young, they have had to piece things together from newspaper clippings they have been able to locate.  'One newspaper article claimed that Malcolm murdered our mum because she neglected us, but I don't believe this,' Theresa said.

After Malcolm was sent to prison, the sisters were taken in to foster care in Scotland, before being returned to Wales.  Theresa was then told that Malcolm was not her father at all, and was sent to live in London with her biological father and step-mum, whilst her sisters were adopted in Wales.  When Theresa left for London, Janet said that she wasn't able to give her a proper goodbye.  Janet said: 'After she was gone, we were told we'd never see her again. When we were separated, it felt like part of me had been torn away.  I'd lost the two most important females in my life before I was six years old. Growing up without my big sister was really hard, because we had had such a close bond.  The family me and my other two sisters were adopted in to was very dysfunctional and suddenly I was the big sister, trying to navigate a hostile environment without Theresa there to protect me.'

Over a hundred miles a way, in London, Theresa was also having a miserable upbringing.  'My real dad wasn't particularly nice, he hit me', she said. 'Growing up without my sisters was so hard because I wasn't able to share any special moments with them.'

Both Theresa and Janet had thought about reaching out to each other over the years, but fear and anxiety always stopped them.  Janet said a big reason why she never tried to contact Theresa was because she always felt guilty, as it was her father that had killed Theresa's mother.  'When I was growing up, my adopted mother told me I would end up in prison like him', she said.

Janet said she had tried to look for Theresa in 2022, by looking through her mother's documents to find Theresa's surname.  However, she ended up being too scared to reach out.  She said: 'I thought she might hate me because of what my father did, and I thought that if I truly mattered to her, she would be looking for me and that somehow it would come together, and it did.'

When Janet got the call from Theresa, she was in complete shock.  'I couldn't believe it, I was overwhelmed and so relieved,' she said. 'But it was so upsetting to hear how terribly she had been treated too.'

Since reuniting, the sisters have been trying their best to piece together what happened all those years ago.  'We've had to piece everything together ourselves as the authorities sealed our files until 2073', Theresa said.

The sisters weren't even allowed to go to their mother's funeral, and have only just seen her grave for the first time.  'Janet had to track our Mum's grave down which I saw for the first time this year', Theresa said.

'A lot was pieced together when we reunited in July this year.'

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Articles / British backpacker reveals how she became the legal guardian of nine ....

« on: January 10, 2026, 01:34:51 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-15422487/british-backpacker-legal-guardian-nine-children-orphanage-abuse.html

British backpacker reveals how she became the legal guardian of nine children after uncovering horrific abuse at orphanage

READ MORE: I'm the youngest solo traveller to visit 100 countries - but my age got me into BIG trouble with airport security

By ALI GRAVES

Published: 09:57, 10 January 2026 | Updated: 10:03, 10 January 2026

A British woman has revealed how a travel adventure following her A-levels changed her life forever after she was placed in an orphanage in Tanzania, and ended up becoming the legal guardian to nine of the children who lived there.   Letty McMaster, now 31, from Tunbridge Wells, was just 18 when she set off in 2012 with a school friend on a month-long volunteering placement at the children's home in Tanzania.  The student had planned for the placement to be the first stop on a gap year but the weeks spent with the street children stopped her in her tracks.  Letty quickly discovered that many of the orphans were being subjected to emotional, physical and sexual abuse, with some of them confiding in her 'like a big sister' during her stay.  Speaking to the Daily Mail, she says those first weeks spent in the East African country changed the course of her life.  This is where everything changed. I ended up staying for the most part of the next three years. I learned the language and that's when the truth really unfolded.  When I heard and witnessed what the children were going through, I was determined to give them a proper place to call home where they could be safe, loved and cared for.'

Remarkably, Letty was registered as the legal guardian of nine of the children when she was just 22 years old.  Within those three years, the local government closed the orphanage down but Letty had already set plans in motion to have a home ready for the children to move into.  After taking them into her care at just 22, the children, who ranged from 10 to 16 years old at the time, she has raised them as a family unit for the last nine years and seen them prosper.  She says: 'When I think back, I'm like "oh my goodness, I was still so young myself", but there was no way I wasn't doing it, I was determined. I was ready to do whatever it took - and it took a lot.'

Letty went through different legal processes with social welfare, regional offices and all types of government officials. There was also another moral reason behind Letty's decision.  'They needed a place to call home and not be seen as orphans. At the orphanage, they were very much a tourist attraction with a much darker side. I needed them out of that situation and that cycle of abuse.'

The children were subjected to emotional and physical abuse and according to Letty, learning the local language of Swahili was key to finding out what was truly going on.  In 2019, Letty continued her mission and opened a second home, known as a safe house, specifically for children who are on the streets and need an immediate relief option.  The home has supported more than 100 children per year and here they can play football, have food, shower and receive counselling.

'This was the best way for me to assess the best route of action for each child,' she said.

'Some younger ones can be rehomed with relatives if it's safe to do so but older ones might choose vocational courses.  I support them in a local college where they can learn useful skills like mechanics and carpentry.'

The home is also used to house abandoned babies. Often, when a mother dies during childbirth in the region, relatives need support to look after the newborn.  The team provide those life-saving essentials in the first stage of their lives.  She spends nine months of the year in Tanzania, returning to the UK to work in temporary roles that help fund her cause.  In Tanzania, she works alongside trusted staff, including a security guard, a social worker and a cook.  Back in the UK, she also works on her charity work, fundraising and partnership deals.  Letty, who has a younger sister in the UK, admits that although she takes on a parental role, it's more sibling-like love.  'I see them all like my brothers and sisters, but my family do also come out and visit me in Tanzania.'

Naturally, Letty's work comes at a cost. While initially volunteering, friends and family would donate to help with everyday things like mosquito nets and medical care.  Since then, Letty set up her UK-registered charity, Street Children Iringa, in 2017.  Iringa, a city in the southern highlands of Tanzania where the charity is based, is home to many vulnerable street children due to rural poverty, family breakdown and a lack of child protection services.  Tanzania has one of the highest rates of child vulnerability in East Africa, with an estimated two million children having lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS, with only 19 per cent of births officially registered.  As the children raised in the family home are now adults, Letty's focus for 2026 is underway with plans in motion to expand Street Children Iringa's reach.   Alongside maintaining the safe house, she is soon launching a new project supporting young mothers and their babies living on the streets.  Many of these young mothers are in this situation after fleeing forced marriages, which remain common for girls as young as 11 in some tribal villages.  Street life in Iringa is tough. Letty describes how many survive by finding rubbish in dumps, finding anything they can to sell to get food and many sleep in dumps or gutters.  It's extremely dangerous at night and a lot end up involved in gangs and drugs.  The safe houses also allow the children to dream big for the first time.  'It's making them believe they can achieve anything and ridding themselves psychologically of being a street child,' she said.

'With the right support, love and believing in them, they can do anything. One of my boys, Mohamed, was involved in gangs and drugs and now he's a professional boxer.'

Mohamed, 19, said: 'I feel so lucky to have been welcomed into the family home. Before this I was alone on the street, involved in gangs and drugs since I was 12.  I have succeeded so much since having a place to call home and the love and support I needed.  Now I am a respected boxer, referred to as a champion and representing my region. I am so grateful to my sister Letty for believing in me when no one else did.'

In December 2020, Letty and Street Children Iringa received a 'Point of Light' award from then Prime Minister Boris Johnson; to date she has raised over £500,000 to support the charity's homes, education programmes and welfare projects over the past nine years.  In the future, Letty would love to take things even further and expand her safe houses across Africa but for now, she is focused on one thing at a time.  Over new year, she flew out for a huge celebratory dinner with her extended family.  'Christmas isn't such a big deal over there, but we always mark a fresh New Year and all our successes past, present and to come.'

To donate to Street Children Iringa, visit, totalgiving.co.uk/charity/street-children-iringa or for more information, visit streetchildreniringa.org.

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Articles / Scriptwriter says adopted children as film villains is harmful

« on: January 02, 2026, 06:13:16 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39dwglnmw0o

Scriptwriter says adopted children as film villains is harmful

Rowenna Hoskin
BBC Wales

Published 7 December 2025

Hollywood blockbusters and horror films frequently using adopted children as psychopaths and villains causes harm in real life, adoptees have said.  James Evans, 23, was two-and-a-half months old when he was removed from his birth family due to their inability to parent and harmful behaviour.  Now with a masters degree in scriptwriting, James said films such as Thor, Annabelle and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, among many others, made him "frustratingly uncomfortable" at how adoptees are depicted.  PhD researcher Annalisa Toccara-Jones said she had interviewed adult adoptees who felt "a real disconnection between what they're seeing in TV and film and what they actually experience".

James, from Cardiff, said adopted characters had their trauma used to explain bad behaviour, which impacts the way society views people like him.  He was fostered by two families before Ruth and Andrew Evans adopted him when he was two and said no film or TV series had ever made him feel "properly seen".  One of the most high-profile adoptees in cinema is the Norse god of mischief Loki in the Marvel films.  While he is Thor's adopted brother in the film, the original myth is that the two are friends, external.  These stories reinforce damaging stereotypes of adopted people as imposters or "devil children" where trauma is used as a "lazy" plot device for evil, he said.  The other end of the spectrum is the "grateful adoptee", when a child's adoption is seen as a fairy tale ending, such as Miss Honey taking in Matilda in the Roald Dahl book and subsequent films.  This ignores "the loss and grief" of children being taken away from their birth parents, James said.  Adopted characters tended to be "criminals, psychopaths, these broken damaged people that are here to cause trouble".

He added that this approach "really knocks your confidence" and affects how adopted people go through the world.  Susie James, 64, from Bournemouth is adopted, has adopted her son, and is researching complex psychological, social dynamics of adoption for a PhD at the University of Bradford.  She said horror films such as Orphan implied adoptees were "ticking timebombs" which fuelled "stigma and fear".  Adopted children are "labelled as coming with some kind of defect, something in the past which is going to turn them into a monster" which makes an "easy plot device for horror".  She said harmful stereotypes could increase bullying of adoptees and "doesn't do anything for their self-esteem".

While James has been "loved and cared for" and has "the best support system" in parents Ruth and Andrew, he said just because his trauma was invisible, does not mean he did not need help.  "There was no post-adoption support when I was adopted back in 2004, I was left to drown in my trauma of grief, loss, identity and attachment, which has had a huge impact on my life."

He said he was often asked how he could remember trauma from infancy, but stressed "it's a huge misconception" that babies and infants can't remember things.  While they can't form explicit picture memories, external there are "subconscious memories" which "become part of the brain and body".  James said the portrayal of adoptees through the fairy tale lens was as damaging as being presented as villains as it tells society they were ungrateful if they behave outside this stereotype.  Both portrayals could be damaging in terms of future adoptive parents as they could think either everything will be easy or are put off because they think the children will be "naughty and really bad".  Language like "real parents" when talking about birth family compared to adoptive families was also unhelpful, he said.  "If an adopted child's parents are parenting them, they are their real parents.  They are the ones who are there every day fighting for their child and that is real parenting. Biology isn't fundamentally what defines parenting, it's what you do."

Despite all this, James and Susie highlighted some good portrayals.  Doctor Who fan James said the show's exploration of the Doctor's childhood during Jodie Whittaker's era felt nuanced and accurate, which makes sense as the writer Chris Chibnall is an adoptee himself.  They also both agreed that Lost Boys and Fairies by Daf James captured the complexity of the adoption process.  Inspired by his own experience, Daf's award-winning drama follows two husbands navigating the adoption process.  "Adopting my three children has been the most challenging yet rewarding thing I've done," Daf said.

"I realised I hadn't really seen it reflected authentically on screen.  Social workers are often antagonists in dramas, rather than heroes. Kids are troubled rather than vulnerable children who need loving homes.  Adoption can change lives, and so can the stories that reflect adoption positively."

Emily Frith, CEO of Adoption UK, said the organisation has heard from other adoptees who were upset by how they are portrayed on screen.  "Horror films and thrillers, where an adopted person is somebody coming into a family and causing a challenge or drama is very othering," she said.

"It's saying there's something really different, whereas obviously an adopted person has the same potential as anyone else in life, they just have stuff that gets in the way."

Her advice to screenwriters was to research and "understand the perspectives of different people with different lived experience".

Ms Toccara-Jones, 38, from Sheffield, who is researching narratives of adoption in media and how it impacts adoptees, said those voices "have been sidelined" in policy making as decision-makers are not adopted themselves.  This influences storytelling in TV and film which then further feeds the way adoptees are seen by society.  Within her research, she has interviewed adult adoptees who she said felt "a real disconnection between what they're seeing in TV and film and what they actually experience" which was "a form of gaslighting".

Susie said she wanted to see adoptees presented "with compassion", detailing "what they've been through" and their "struggle to function and reach their potential in our society" as well as the "trauma that lives inside them and how they navigate that with a support system that's crumbling".

Now he has graduated James is beginning his career in an industry he hopes to help change for the better.  His aim is to bring "authentic representation of adoption from the perspective of adoptees to TV and film".

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Articles / Brothers 10,000 miles apart meet for first time after childhood adoption

« on: December 31, 2025, 05:23:02 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2v5l1pd7ko

Brothers 10,000 miles apart meet for first time after childhood adoption

Nick Servini
BBC Wales
Published 25 December 2025

It was a 10,000-mile, 23-hour journey for a meeting that was more than 60 years in the making, but Russell Gower has finally met his older sibling for the first time in-person.  Earlier this month, Russell, 64, travelled from his home in south Wales to Brisbane, Australia, to meet with his 69-year-old brother Peter.  But, far from being awkward, he described the moment as feeling totally "natural", adding that "there was nothing else other than joy".

The long lost pair's reunion will now be officially marked by a big family party in Brisbane on Christmas Day.  Both men were born in London to parents Ray and Jill.  Peter was born when Jill was just 15 and the couple had yet to be married a situation with a stigma attached in the 1950s which meant he was put up for adoption and taken to Australia where he was raised.  Ray and Jill, who have both died, went on to get married after their first son had been adopted, they had Russell a few years later and then a sister Jackie, who has also died.  Peter lived most of his life in Australia without realising the truth about his birth family, until his adoptive sister told him in recent years.  His granddaughter in Australia then tracked down Russell, who has lived in Llanharan, Rhondda Cynon Taf, for more than 30 years, and DNA tests have been carried out to confirm the link.  Russell was told by his sister when he was a teenager that he had an adopted brother, but his mother never directly opened up about Peter.  With just a few days to live with terminal cancer in 2007, she said to him: "There is something I need to tell you."

Russell is convinced it was to tell him about his brother but she died before she had the chance.  He said: "My mother was obviously deeply traumatised by it, although I would never have known that.  She told my sister in the end. I do not know how she got through her life having lost a baby in those circumstances.  She must have wondered every single day about what he was doing. What was his first day in school like? Did he have children? It must have been very very tough for her."

Russell, a retired retail operations manager with a bakery, is married with a daughter, but travelled to Australia alone for the first meeting.  He had tried to track down his brother in Australia a number of years ago but his efforts fizzled out.  The moment in which both men, with strikingly similar builds, met with a handshake on the drive of Peter's house in Brisbane was captured on camera by relatives who had helped organise the encounter.  The entire wider family of 17 people will now gather for a full celebration on Christmas Day.  Russell said he was wary ahead of the meeting but his brother had said he bore no malice or bitterness about the adoption.  He said of his feelings before the encounter: "We really had nothing in common other than blood.  He has had a completely different life on the other side of the world and a completely different upbringing.  I was a bit worried about how that was going to be but my concerns were soon set aside. It felt natural from the get-go.  When I shook his hand and he put his arm on my shoulder, I just knew. There was something about it. It was like we were wired the same."

He said they both "got a bit emotional" when he told Peter it would have been their mother's 85th birthday.  It was just purely coincidental he and I spent some quality time together on what would have been her 85th birthday. The stars had aligned," said Russell.

"I am sure she would have been chuffed to see her two boys out having a beer and a chat. It was gold dust.  It is destiny really. I could have gone through my whole life and never found him and out of the blue here we are."

With "so much ground to cover", the pair are starting to wonder if the three-week visit is long enough.  "It has changed my world.," said Russell.

"It could not have come at a better time. Any day of the week would be fantastic but to be invited out there for Christmas is really special.  I never thought I'd be saying this but I will be having a barbecue on Christmas Day with my brother. Unbelievable."

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Articles / The Duke of Windsor almost 'adopted a British war orphan' to fix his ....

« on: December 08, 2025, 10:10:18 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-15345341/The-Duke-Windsor-adopted-British-war-orphan-fix-tarnished-reputation-preposterous-PR-advice-reveals-CHRISTOPHER-WILSON.html

The Duke of Windsor almost 'adopted a British war orphan' to fix his 'tarnished' reputation in preposterous PR advice, reveals CHRISTOPHER WILSON

By CHRISTOPHER WILSON

Published: 07:03, 8 December 2025 | Updated: 08:47, 8 December 2025

The Duke of Windsor was so desperate to restore his popularity after the abdication that he considered adopting a son, the Daily Mail can reveal.  At the end of World War II when the royal couple were trying to establish themselves as credible individuals on the world stage much like Prince Harry and Meghan today the duke and duchess found themselves hit by a wave of damaging publicity which accused the ex-king of a shameful war record, snooty behaviour, vast extravagance, and unpaid bills.  The distinguished writer Joe Bryan, who was considered a friend, described Edward as 'A millionaire miser'.

Another friend, Lady Diana Mosley, admitted, 'The Windsors always attract a bad press. The newspapers are determined to emphasise the emptiness of their lives. There's a moral there somewhere.'

From being the most popular Prince of Wales in the title's 900-year history, Edward's reputation had sunk so low that wherever the royal couple travelled, people counted the excessive number of bags which followed them in their luggage. They had become a worldwide joke.  The couple were desperate to re-set a news agenda that had spiralled out of control. So they called in Clare Boothe Luce, the famous writer, diplomat and politician to a crisis meeting in New York.  'Our publicity has been frightful,' wailed the duchess. 'The duke is worried sick. What are we to do?'

Mrs Luce promised to think about it and left. But within minutes she was back. 'I have it!' she cried, 'why don't you adopt a British war orphan, a boy? You might even name him "David Windsor"!'

The childless duke slowly nodded his approval. 'But of course,' he said, entirely missing the huge potential uproar such a move could create, 'the boy wouldn't inherit any of my titles. My brother [King George VI] will see to that!'

The couple needed to do something. They'd recently accepted an invitation to the upper-crust Kentucky Derby, stayed as guests with a local multi-millionaire, and then billed their host $1,000 for turning up. The American press turned on them with scorn.  The gossip columnists eagerly revealed that when the Windsors were invited to dinner they self-importantly insisted on being sent the menu and guest-list, with the right of veto on either or both.  As one biographer described him, 'Edward, Duke of Windsor had become a rather ridiculous, mildly contemptible and half-forgotten figure, so tarnished have his and Wallis's names become.'

The couple needed some good news to stop the rot. And maybe adopting a war orphan would get everything back on track.  Pressing home her point, Clare Boothe Luce insisted: 'The important thing [about adopting a child] is that the adoption would remind the English people of your love for England.'

This advice, coming from a woman who herself was 48 and childless, was little short of crazy the Duke was 56 and the Duchess 54.  No monarch, or ex-monarch, had ever contemplated such a wild idea.  And in post-war Britain, where King George was desperately trying wipe the public's memory of the duke and his abdication, it would have created a huge sensation how would the child be chosen, what was his family background, who were the other possible adoptees, and why were they rejected?

The story would never have left the nation's front pages.  Finally the plan was put to bed by the duchess 'one of the most selfish women I ever met', as Winston Churchill described her.

Angrily she put her foot down. 'Who knows how the child would turn out?' she objected. 'He might turn out to be as stupid as [Windsor's brother] Harry Gloucester. The answer's no!'

Clare Luce felt that becoming a 'mother' did not fit with Wallis's idea of herself as a world style icon she would be jealous of the child, forced to tug him round on photo-shoots and public engagements. Far rather she wanted to be seen on a level with screen goddesses of the day, like the fabled Greta Garbo.  The two legends met around that time 'It was a historic moment,' recalled the actress Lilli Palmer, who with her husband Rex Harrison hosted a party to introduce them.

'The two women sat face to face and sized each other up from head to toe. Both knew they were legends of the twentieth century.'

In Lilli Palmer's opinion, if the king was going to give up his throne for a woman, that woman should have been Greta Garbo not Wallis Simpson. 'Forever the world's most beautiful woman, she was unique and unattainable. The duchess, in her jewels, wore something white and exquisite but she was no match for Greta in her old blue slacks and a faded blouse.'

So the idea of becoming an adoptive mother fraught with danger, and likely to blacken the reputation of the Windsors even

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Articles / The Damaging Effects of Misrepresentation of Adoption in the Media

« on: December 03, 2025, 05:00:06 PM »

https://stuyspec.com/article/the-damaging-effects-of-misrepresentation-of-adoption-in-the-media

The Damaging Effects of Misrepresentation of Adoption in the Media
Representations of adoption falsely shape mainstream attitudes.

By Juliet Burguieres
Issue 8, Volume 113

From Superman to Annie, adoption is a part of the media we love. For many writers, adoption adds a level of complexity to their stories that appeals to audiences while still keeping a family-friendly tone. However, despite the large selection of stories involving adoption, only a few positively portray adoptees and their families.  Movies and TV shows like Stuart Little, The Owl House, Elf, and even the IMDb description of I Am the Night (about “a teenage girl looking for her real father”) use the term “real” to describe biological families. When characters interchangeably use “real” and “biological,” it suggests that the inverse is also true that “fake” and “adoptive” are the same. While this seems harmless, it proves that screenwriters are happy to exploit adoption stories. Even a minimal amount of research would find that the adoption community prefers the term “biological family” over “real family.”  Other shows, like Netflix’s Carmen Sandiego and Green Eggs and Ham, romanticize the issue of abandonment. In these shows, birth parents were forced to relinquish their children because they were involved in flashy crime organizations or were high-profile spies, respectively. These are irresponsible plotlines that may prompt adopted children to fantasize about another family out there that leads a glamorous life and is willing and able to care for them. Sadly, this is almost never the case. It sends the message that an adoptive family is like a placeholder for the “real” one that an adopted child should search for.  In a more sinister manner, Orphan and its sequel Orphan: First Kill are horror movies about families who adopt a child only to learn that this “child” is a homicidal grown woman. These films encourage parents to seemingly shield their biological children against the foreign threat, demonizing adopted children in favor of biological children. They suggest that adoption is dangerous and reinforce the idea that an adopted child is an outsider who does not belong.  Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy is another example that exemplifies the misunderstanding of the familial bonds adoption creates. The show depicts seven children whom an eccentric billionaire “bought” because of their extraordinary superhuman abilities. Not only does the show promote the idea that adopted children are commodities, but the series also goes on to explore a romantic relationship between two of the adoptive siblings, which has rightfully elicited backlash.  However, some viewers justify these misrepresentations as attempts to create interesting media. As one article put it, The Umbrella Academy should be allowed to misrepresent adoption because “the point” is to “creat[e] compelling art.” This author believes that since the incestuous relationship “presents a challenging dilemma for the characters,” it is okay to make people uncomfortable.

This show and many others like it, decides to delegitimize the bonds formed in adoption in favor of a more dramatic plotline.  If you’re getting tired of this list, imagine how tired adopted families feel. My family adopted my sister almost eight years ago. Unfortunately, representations of adoptive families in mainstream media are often inaccurate. We try to protect my sister from watching media that misrepresents adoption, but it is hard. We are tired of digging through articles and spoiling plot lines to avoid showing my baby sister a degrading movie or show, which is all too common in much of the media currently produced for children.  Importantly, negative messages about adoption aren’t confined to the screen. For many of the harmful depictions of adoption in the media, my family has personal experiences that reflect the messages they promote. My sister was once on a Zoom playdate with a girl from her school when, out of nowhere, the girl began interrogating her about where her “real family” was. My mother calmly informed the little girl that we were my sister’s “real” family, but when she informed the child’s parents of the incident, they saw no issue with their child’s insensitive question. As a society, we have become accustomed to exploiting adoption with no regard to the pain it may cause.  A friend of mine once declared with confidence that my family had “bought a baby.”

Too shocked to explain why this was false, I simply responded that she was wrong. The incident was perhaps more disturbing than if she had said it out of malice. It proves the power of the media to distort how well-meaning people talk about adoption.  My family is tired of justifying our legitimacy we deserve just as much respect as biological families. The solution is all too simple: research. If writers simply learn the correct terminology to use and consider the message their stories of adoption promote, our media would be kinder and, in turn, children would stop growing up believing that adoption is “sad” or that adopted families aren’t “real.”  Websites like RainbowKids go to great lengths to explore the complexities of responding to questions about adoption. One great response to being asked if two siblings are “real” siblings is to say “They are NOW! (This clarifies that adoption makes us a real family.)”

Articles from Adoption can give you other perspectives and opinions on adoption. HealthyChildren explains other facets of adoption and foster care that my article didn’t have the space to discuss. AdoptHelp has a comprehensive list of some terms to avoid when talking about adoption. By teaching oneself, anyone can help to create kindness and understanding. Simply using the right terminology can be the difference between alienating someone and accepting them. And for those already part of the adoption community, consider reading the articles for reaffirmation there are people out there who recognize and accept you and your family.  Everyone has a role to play in creating a society that is more accepting of different families. I talked solely about adoption, and only from my perspective as the sister of an adoptee, but there are so many other stories to tell about non-traditional families. We must be thoughtful in our portrayals of different families and give them the basic respect they are due.

7

Articles / Gordon Brown calls for apologies over forced adoptions in England and Wales

« on: November 27, 2025, 06:20:53 PM »

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/20/gordon-brown-calls-for-apologies-over-historic-forced-adoptions

Gordon Brown calls for apologies over forced adoptions in England and Wales

Campaigners say time running out to issue formal apology to women who had babies taken away in 1950s, 60s and 70s

Gordon Brown has called on the UK government to issue a formal apology to women whose babies were forcibly adopted in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.  The former Labour prime minister said the state should apologise for its role in the “terrible tragedy” of forced adoptions involving about 200,000 women in England and Wales.  His comments come six months after campaigners said time was running out, with some women dying before hearing a formal apology.  Karen Constantine of the Movement for an Adoption Apology (MAA) told the Guardian in February: “The value of an apology would be immensely healing and resolve unimaginable pain endured for decades by an ageing cohort of women who had their babies taken from them.”

Brown said the government should acknowledge “the damage that was done, the hurt that it’s caused”.

He told ITV News: “This is something that should never have happened.  The fact that we can now do something, not to rectify the problem, but to apologise for what happened, I think is really important.”

The Labour government had had sufficient time to look at the issue, he added. “It’s time to make the apology for the forced adoption of children, who are now adults, who have been waiting for the assurance that the government understands what happened to them, waiting to know that the government is prepared to apologise on behalf of the country. While it wasn’t this government’s fault, I think they are owed an apology.”

Last year, Veronica Smith, one of the co-founders of the MAA, died aged 83. The loss of her daughter in a forced adoption in 1964 had “coloured the whole of my life”, she said.

She had hoped to testify at a public hearing into forced adoptions, but the government dismissed calls for an inquiry in 2017.  Discussions with senior Labour politicians before last year’s election led the MAA to believe that a formal apology would be issued if the party took power. “It’s beyond disappointing that it hasn’t happened,” said Constantine. “My many formal and informal conversations led me to believe an apology would be forthcoming and that Keir Starmer would deliver it.”

Estimates of the number of unmarried women who were sent to mother and baby homes run by religious organisations and the state between 1949 and 1976 range between 180,000 and 250,000. Most were coerced into putting their babies up for adoption; some babies died due to mistreatment or poor care.  A parliamentary inquiry into forced adoptions in 2021 found the UK government was “ultimately responsible” for actions that inflicted harm on young, vulnerable women and children. “An apology by the government and an official recognition that what happened to these mothers was dreadful and wrong would go some way to mitigate the pain and suffering of those affected,” it said.

The Scottish and Welsh governments formally apologised for forced adoptions in 2023.  In 2016, the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales apologised for its role in forced adoptions, and the Church of England also expressed “great regret”.  ITV News said it had discovered nearly 70 unmarked graves of babies who died at Hopedene maternity home, a Salvation Army institution in Newcastle, through freedom of information requests.  Last year it obtained burial records that revealed 197 babies were buried in mass burial grounds at least 10 different cemeteries across England.

8

Articles / The heartbreaking discovery my mother gave me up for adoption but kept my ....

« on: November 21, 2025, 07:39:23 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/lifestyle/family-parenting/article-15310955/The-heartbreaking-discovery-mother-gave-adoption-kept-older-sister-55-years-met-came-devastating-realisation.html?offset=9&max=100&jumpTo=comment-6552734163&reply=655273416

The heartbreaking discovery my mother gave me up for adoption but kept my older sister. Then after 55 years I met he and came to a devastating realisation

By CAROL ANN MORISON

Published: 00:51, 21 November 2025 | Updated: 00:51, 21 November 2025

Growing up an only child, I never lacked for anything material or emotional.  There’s a snap of me as a little girl with my parents that illustrates this perfectly. Always at the centre of their lives, I’m walking between them beautifully turned out, down to my neat white ankle socks and a bow in my hair with Mum and Dad each holding one of my hands.  But there was one thing I ­desperately wanted that they couldn’t give me: brothers and ­sisters to play with.  I loved going next door to see my best friend, Isobel, and her two ­sisters. I felt so envious watching how they shared toys and secrets. But I’d been adopted as a baby after my parents suffered the heartache of repeated miscarriages.  Mum and Dad never kept my adoption a secret in fact, they told me it made me more precious to them but inevitably I wondered about my origins.  An imaginative child, I fantasised that I was a stolen baby princess who would one day be returned to her royal family. It helped push out the very difficult question that lurked in the back of my mind: why hadn’t my birth mother loved me enough to keep me?

As I would discover later in life, there was a much more complicated answer to that question than I could ever have dreamt up as a little girl. For while my birth mother had desperately wanted to keep me, I was the only one of her five children who was put up for ­adoption. And I was not, as you might expect, her first-born.  In fact, my older sister had stayed within the family. Discovering that I was the one given away was, at first, difficult to come to terms with.  Of course, growing up I knew nothing of this.  Until my teens I shied away from asking too many questions because I was worried my parents might feel rejected. But when I was 13, Dad died suddenly from a brain aneurysm and Mum moved us from our home in Stornoway, Scotland, back to her hometown of Hull.  Unsettled by all the changes, the question ‘why did my birth mother give me away?’ began to intrude into my thoughts more frequently.

When I finally put this to Mum, far from being upset, she told me she always knew I’d ask and explained that my biological mother’s name was Helen, that she had become ­pregnant with me as a teenager and my birth father had wanted to marry her but her parents thought she was too young.  I remember feeling a great sense of relief my mother hadn’t rejected me after all.  I imagined my birth parents as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet: young lovers torn apart and cruelly forced to give up their baby.  For the next two decades that explanation was enough for me. The question of where I came from sat quietly in the background while everyday life took over. Having left school at 17, I met my husband, Glenn, and we married when I was just 18 and he was 22. Our daughters, Tina and Amanda, were born in 1973 and 1974 respectively, and all my energy and focus went into bringing them up.  It was only in 1989 when, aged 35, I happened to see a television documentary about two sisters separated at birth and reunited later in life, that those feelings came rushing back. I remember being in tears on the sofa, thinking how I’d longed for ­siblings of my own.  After the documentary, I wrote to the register office in Edinburgh asking for a copy of my original birth certificate. As I was born in Glasgow it would be held there.  They replied asking for documents I didn’t have: namely proof of identity beyond my adoption certificate. By then Mum had died she passed away in 1986 after suffering a stroke and the house had been cleared.  Although I could have sent my marriage certificate, at the time it all just felt too overwhelming and so I pushed the idea of trying to trace Helen aside.  It kept niggling at me, though. When I took a trip to Edinburgh the following year, I decided to try again.  I gathered everything I could think of marriage certificate, photographs, any scraps of paperwork I still had.  But on the drive up, my car was hit from behind and I ended up being taken home by the AA. I remember thinking the universe was telling me that meeting my birth mother just wasn’t meant to be.  Looking back, that makes me very sad, because it turned out Helen longed to meet me and two years after the crash had tried to find me herself.  Yet for me, life took over again. As well as caring for my family I was building a successful career in human resources, eventually becoming an international head of HR for a multi-national.

Then in 2008 by then aged 54 I was in Edinburgh for a meeting and happened to walk past Register House. It brought all the old feelings back. I finally went inside and the staff told me about Birthlink, the Scottish charity that helps reunite families following adoption.  I sent them an email and a week later they told me they’d found a match mu mother had already ­contacted the charity herself.  I felt a rush of elation so strong it left me dizzy.  I imagined our reunion: what she would look like; what she would say; whether she would recognise anything of herself in me.  So when, a few days later, a second email informed me she had died of cancer ten years earlier, aged 61, I felt utterly shattered.  I read the message through a wall of tears. I had left it too late.  But Birthlink forwarded me copies of the letters Helen had written ­during her attempts to find me.  Seeing Mum’s handwriting beautifully neat, unlike my own left-handed scrawl felt incredible. ­Written on very thin-lined paper, they’re the most tangible thing connecting us and I still treasure them.  They were addressed to the agency staff but so much of what she wrote seemed to have been intended for me.  Little details stood out. She wrote that I had a birthmark on the back of my right calf something she had remembered from the time she spent with me in the mother-and-baby home before I was placed with my adoptive parents aged three months.  And she wrote of her regret at not having been strong enough to stand up to her mother; that she had wanted to keep me but felt she had no choice. One line read: ‘I do not want my daughter to go through life thinking she was an unwanted child.’

Another said: ‘I will never ­forget her as long as I live.’

For a girl who had grown up assuming her birth mother didn’t want her, reading these words was extraordinarily emotional.  Birthlink asked if I would like them to trace any other relatives. I didn’t hesitate to answer ‘yes’.

A few weeks later they contacted me to explain that Helen’s sister, Violet, was living in Glasgow and keen to speak to me.  From the moment Violet picked up the phone, I felt a warmth that caught me off-guard as though she instinctively understood how overwhelming it was for me to speak to my first biological relative.  She filled in the gaps, explaining how the family had emigrated to Australia under the Ten Pound Poms scheme after the war.  But Helen falling pregnant with me aged 19 had caused such upset that the whole family had moved back to Glasgow in an attempt to keep her away from my father.  Violet told me how, after I was adopted in 1954, Helen later married a man called Samuel and had three more children before the whole family moved back to Australia in the early 1970s.  This was the first I knew of any ­siblings. I was delighted but also a little sad that they had got to grow up with our mother while I hadn’t. In that same conversation, Violet told me that Helen had made several trips back to Glasgow to try to find me. On one occasion she had tearfully told Violet: ‘She would have been 40 today.’

Then the conversation took a totally unexpected turn. Violet paused: ‘Helen had a baby before you.’

I didn’t breathe for a moment. ‘She had a little girl,’ she continued. ‘Her name was Ann.’

Everything in me seemed to stop. For 40 years I had believed I was Helen’s first child. In fact, I had built entire explanations of how my life started around that belief.  The idea of another baby before me upended everything.  I was too shocked to ask any questions and ended the conversation as quickly as I could so I could try to process what I had just learnt.  Horrible thoughts swirled around my head. I assumed from the little Violet had said that Helen must have kept Ann, so why didn’t she keep me?

What sort of person had my mother really been?

Had I been too ­forgiving of her?

Three days later, my half-brother Billy, now 69, called. His voice felt instantly familiar.  My other half-siblings Tommy, 65, and Linda, 67 were with him, and together they told me more about the mother I had never known. They recalled Helen working long hours in factories and as a bus conductor to support them; how she and their father Samuel had enjoyed a happy marriage; how gentle and loving she had been.  But one question sat heavily on my tongue. Taking a breath, I asked: ‘Billy, are you in touch with Ann?’

There was a pause. He seemed shocked that I knew about her.  Then he continued and my world shifted again.  ‘You’re full sisters,’ he told me.

Ann and I shared the same father.  He said that Ann, 15 months older than me, was also living in Australia. A few hours after we hung up, Ann phoned me herself.  We talked for almost three hours that first night, the conversation intense and emotional.  By the time we finished the call, everything I had feared since ­Violet’s revelation that I had an older sister had dissolved into something far more complex.  It became clear, very quickly, that I had no need to be jealous of Ann’s relationship with our mother Helen.  Ann’s childhood had been ­nothing like mine and in so many ways, I had been the lucky one.  She told me that, yes, as I ­suspected, she had been kept in the family but she wasn’t raised by Helen. Instead, she was brought up by our grandparents, who told Ann that they were her parents.  Apparently the arrangement had been presented to Helen as the only way she could stay connected to her baby but it was on the strict condition that Helen played the role of big sister and the secret was kept for ever.  She had been a frightened teenager just 18 at the time and ­completely under her mother’s control, with no power to ­challenge any of it.  When Helen subsequently became pregnant with me, our grandmother made it clear that another baby could not be absorbed into the household and that adoption was the only option. Ann herself only discovered the truth aged 21, when Helen finally told her.  My sister’s early years sounded heartbreakingly bleak. Ann said our grandmother was cold and controlling, and she never felt wanted in that house.  In a twist that still makes my stomach turn, she explained how our grandmother had another baby a few years after I was born, naming her Caroline.  Technically my aunt, I’ve never met Caroline, as my siblings lost touch with her years ago.  Ann told me that Helen and ­Violet felt sure our grandmother chose the name deliberately because it ­echoed Carol Ann my birth name, which my adoptive parents had kept.  They believed, and I do too, that it was her way of punishing Helen for becoming pregnant with me.  It wasn’t Caroline’s fault but she grew up the favoured younger child, with new clothes and ­affection, while Ann got the hand-me-downs.  ‘I always knew something wasn’t right,’ she told me. ‘I always felt different.’

As Ann spoke, the contrast between our lives felt so stark. I had been adopted into a loving home where I was always made to feel wanted. My sister had stayed with our birth family but she had grown up always feeling out of place.  Yet when Ann talked about our mother Helen, her voice softened. She told me about the little gifts Helen used to bring her, how she’d always felt more at ease with Helen than with our grandmother the woman she had believed was her mother.  As for my birth father, Ann told me that she had met him but didn’t like him, so didn’t pursue any further relationship with him.  I’ve no idea if he’s still alive but I never felt any longing to know him myself. Ann’s assessment was a good enough reason not to pursue it further.  A year later, in 2009, I flew to Australia to meet all four of my siblings in person. I will never ­forget walking through the arrivals gate and ­seeing Ann.  We hugged and then she stepped back and announced: ‘I can see Mum in you.’

For a second, I couldn’t speak. All my life I’d wondered who I took after, where my features came from. Hearing that felt like being handed a missing piece of myself.  Meeting my younger half-­siblings Billy, Tommy and Linda felt just as grounding. They were so welcoming and immediately protective of me in a way I never expected.  When my husband Glenn died of cancer in 2015 my brothers and sisters supported me from the other side of the world. Ann even came over for the funeral.  What strikes me most now is that the sadness I carry isn’t for what I missed out on not being with my birth mother. After all, I had a happy childhood and two wonderful parents.  What hurts is thinking about what Helen missed out on. She never got to see me safe. She never saw me become a mother and now a grandmother. She never knew Glenn, or my girls her granddaughters.  I think she would have been proud of the career I forged for myself. She would have loved knowing I was happy.  I often think of her looking for me, travelling back to Glasgow and coming home in tears when she found nothing.  The tragedy isn’t that I lost her it’s that she lost both her eldest girls, in different ways.  Two daughters she wanted but wasn’t allowed to keep.  At least now, we have found each other.

Babies Come From ­Glasgow, by Carol Ann ­Morison, (Grosvenor House Publishing, £15.99) is out now.

As told to RACHEL HALLIWELL

9

Articles / Boy testifies that lesbian parents forced him to wear a helmet and wet suit....

« on: November 15, 2025, 01:55:05 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15291273/ontario-boys-starve-murder-trial-becky-hamber-brandy-cooney.html

Boy testifies that lesbian parents forced him to wear a helmet and wet suit during five years of torture

By JAMES CIRRONE, US NEWS REPORTER

Published: 16:56, 14 November 2025 | Updated: 17:01, 14 November 2025

A teenage boy testified in Canadian court that his lesbian adoptive parents spent five years torturing him and his brother by forcing them to wear hockey helmets and wet suits for hours on end.  The 13-year-old, identified only as J.L., is the prosecution's star witness in the ongoing murder trial of Becky Hamber and Brandy Cooney, who are accused of killing J.L.'s older brother in 2022 by systematically starving him and leaving him soaking wet in their Toronto-area basement.  The older brother, referred to as L.L., was found on December 21, 2022, in the couple's Burlington home lying on the floor of the basement, which was locked from the outside.  Witnesses told the court he was so emaciated that he looked like he was six years old, even though he was 12, CBC reported. The boy died at the hospital shortly after.  J.L. testified on Thursday and was forced to relive the death of his brother and the torment that Hamber and Cooney allegedly put them through.  Both women have pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, unlawful confinement and assault with a weapon.  Lawyers for the prosecution showed J.L. a video of him talking to police in January 2023. He told them that Hamber and Cooney bound him and his brother with zip ties and placed hockey helmets on their heads.  He added that the couple forced them to wear wet suits and would lock them in their rooms at night, all while constantly monitoring their behavior with security cameras.  J.L. reiterated much of what he told the police more than two years ago, but also said that his parents would often forbid him to speak for days at a time.  He said that if he or his brother spoke out of turn, the couple would tack on even more days of forced silence, the Toronto Star reported.  Prosecutor Kelli Frew showed J.L. a video of his brother, who could be seen wearing a wetsuit and a black hockey helmet.  The video showed the boy repeatedly walking up and down the basement stairs.  The video was taken in June 2022, six months before the boy's death, and it is one of many pieces of evidence showing similar punishments doled out to the brothers.  'Did you ever have to do stairs like this?' Frew asked J.L.

'I've had to do this, like all afternoon before,' he replied, adding that he sometimes had to sleep in the helmet.

Frew then played a video with J.L. was sobbing and saying: 'I only did one thing wrong, I can't do them all night.'

The boy said he was likely referring to having to go up and down the stairs, though he didn't recall the couple's reasoning for the punishment in that instance.  Defense lawyers for Hamber and Cooney, who will cross-examine J.L. next Friday, have said the two boys regularly threw tantrums, destroyed things in the couple's home and punched the women.  They have also pointed to J.L.'s admission to police that he bit Cooney.  In his testimony, the boy explained that he did that in self-defense when she was trying to put a hockey helmet on him or zip-tie him into a wet suit.  The boys first moved to Burlington in 2017, and J.L. said the couple soon stopped the them from playing together because 'sometimes we'd argue'.

Once the couple began homeschooling them in 2020 after COVID-19 hit, J.L. said he began seeing his brother less often despite living in the same house.  J.L. also said he slept inside a tent that was tied to his bed. He recalled breaking two or three tents by thrashing around in frustration.  This led to the couple allegedly threatening to make him sleep outside if he broke another tent. He testified that it never came to that.  The prosecution also showed a video of J.L.'s interview with police in September 2023, when he told them that Children's Aid Society workers that visited the home never saw what went on.  He said Hamber and Cooney dressed him in normal clothing during the visits.  The trial will resume Monday and is expected to last until December.

10

Articles / Ministers urged to digitise adoption records to help reunite families

« on: November 11, 2025, 04:03:41 PM »

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/04/england-forced-adoption-digitisation-records-local-government

Ministers urged to digitise adoption records to help reunite families

As ITV’s Long Lost Family airs, campaigners say retaining archives is crucial for those separated by forced adoptions at unmarried mothers’ homes

Ministers have been urged to digitise records essential to reuniting families separated by the UK’s unmarried mothers’ home scandal by campaigners who fear they could be lost in Angela Rayner’s local government reorganisation project.

Hundreds of thousands of British women were coerced to give up babies at church-linked homes, which worked alongside statutory agencies, between the 1940s and 1980s.

This week, ITV’s Long Lost Family: The Mother and Baby Home Scandal will feature the searches of people including mixed-race and disabled adoptees affected by forced adoptions, which the UK government has refused to formally apologise for.  Away from the cameras, campaigners say digitising records across the UK will help survivors struggling to trace relatives and reveal the risk of inherited health conditions or from anti-lactation drugs used in homes.  The Movement for an Adoption Apology (MAA), which fears records could be destroyed in the plans to merge English local authorities, has written to the families minister, Janet Daby, calling for digitised archives.  However in a letter seen by the Guardian, Daby said while “the feasibility of digitising records” had been considered, “the scale and cost make it unachievable within current resources”.

Westminster’s approach contrasts with that of the devolved administrations. Northern Ireland’s Truth Recovery Independent Panel this week revealed it had digitised more than 5,500 records from unmarried mothers’ institutions and planned a permanent archive. In Scotland, the first minister, John Swinney, has committed to working with MAA on an oral history project.  Responding to MAA’s letter in June, Daby said she understood the “historical significance and emotional importance” of adoption records. The minister said officials had written “to all directors of children’s services across England” and regional and voluntary adoption agencies “who may hold similar records”, urging them “to retain all adoption records they hold from 1948 and earlier”, and was planning a consultation to extend the statutory retention period from 75 years to 100 years.

The UK government’s stance is that legal responsibility for records remains with councils.

MAA believes this does not go far enough. In July the Information Commissioner’s Office fined the adoption support charity Birthlink £18,000 for destroying 4,900 records linked to adoptions in Scotland to clear space. This prompted MAA to write to the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, saying it was “gravely worried similar tragic losses are occurring”, and asking to meet and be included in shaping new legislation. MAA awaits a response from Phillipson.

The writer and MAA campaigner Karen Constantine said: “We need a more supportive system for people to access their files and recognition from the government that this is important history we need to capture. The current approach of UK government is indirect sex discrimination they aren’t taking women seriously. With funds under pressure local government reorganisation could lead to chaos for records.  “In my research I’ve found younger generations are now seeking to unravel family history because the trauma has travelled down, and there are more people finding out they are the children of men who fathered siblings born in different homes. There were clear cases of rape and women and girls were punished for it in a system which involved the commodification of children and human trafficking in the UK.”

A government spokesperson said: “This abhorrent practice should never have taken place, and our deepest sympathies are with all those affected. We take this issue extremely seriously and continue to engage with those affected to provide support.”

Long Lost Family’s two-part special, airing at 9pm on 3 and 4 September, says: “For too long the story of unmarried mothers was seen as something that was happening only in Ireland. But now we’re beginning to wake up to the enormity of what happened right here in England.”

11

Articles / 'You'd be selfish to keep your baby': The women haunted by forced adoptions....

« on: November 07, 2025, 05:54:49 PM »

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-07-09/the-women-haunted-by-forced-adoptions-looking-for-answers

'You'd be selfish to keep your baby': The women haunted by forced adoptions looking for answers

Tuesday 15 April 2025 at 2:09pm

Sarah Corker
Social Affairs Correspondent

In the decades after the war, nearly 200,000 unmarried women were forced and shamed into giving up their babies for adoption in England and Wales.  This is the harrowing story of mothers still traumatised by the cruelty they faced for getting pregnant out of wedlock, and their decades-long search for justice.  Between 1949 and the mid 1970s, thousands of women were sent away to mother and baby homes run by churches and the state places of secrecy, cruelty and even abuse where babies were put up for adoption or died through poor care.  ITV News has investigated one home in south Cumbria. Burial records obtained through a Freedom of Information request revealed that 45 babies are buried in unmarked graves close to the institution.  Dr Michael Lambert, an academic specialising in the welfare state at Lancaster University, has spent years investigating the disturbing conditions inside some of these homes for unmarried mothers; St Monica's, in Kendal, which was operated by the Church of England's Diocese of Carlisle from 1918 until its closure in 1970, was the "worst he's come across".  Dr Lambert showed me page after page of official council and government documents that warned of sub-standard medical treatment, a lack of trained midwives and harsh, even punitive conditions.  "Women there were effectively being denied access to modern medicine and I think that is why so many [babies] are dying at such a young age," he told ITV News.

"Even by the standards of that time, mortality rates were high at the home," he said.

Our investigation took us to Parkside Cemetery in Kendal. Official records show that 45 babies are buried in an unmarked plot all lived and died at the home.  The youngest survived for just 45 minutes, the oldest, 11 weeks. There is now a local campaign for headstones to be erected to remember all 45 children.  After decades of silence and secrecy, adoption support charities say more women, many now in their 80s and 90s, are coming forward to access their files, trace their children and seek support. At one time there were 150 homes for unmarried mothers in England.  "For many of those birth mothers, they were told to go home and not talk to anybody about what had happened to them," said Mike Hancock from PAC-UK Family Action, the country's largest independent adoption support agency.

"They held on to these secrets very tightly and I think that is incredibly damaging. There is still a lot of shame, trauma and many women have never spoken about this," he said.

In 1967, Jill Killington, from Norwich, was 17, unmarried and pregnant. Despite being in a steady relationship, she was sworn to secrecy by her "distraught parents".   What followed was a sequence of events that would have life-long consequences.  "I was told 'you'd be selfish to keep your baby. If you love your baby you will give them up', that's what they told all of us," she told ITV News.

"'They’ being the family GP, the midwives, and the moral welfare officers as they were known at the time.  "We were shown into a room and a lady asked if she could hold my son, then she said 'kiss him goodbye' and I knew that was the last time I would ever see him. It was a terribly cruel way to treat mothers and children."

Ms Killington, now 73, was even forced to sign a legal document promising to never look for her son.  27 years later she received a letter from the other side of the world that took her breath away. Her son, Ian Pritchard, had been searching for his mother.  His adoptive family had moved to New Zealand when he was just six, and as an adult he'd battled addiction and mental health challenges.  "It [my adoption] caused me a lot of despair, pain and confusion," Mr Pritchard said.

"We didn't get a choice, Jill didn't get a choice because that choice was taken from her when I was removed from her and I certainly didn't get a choice in any of this."

In the years since their reunion, Jill and Ian have forged a strong bond.  In 2022, an inquiry by the Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that the government bore ultimate responsibility for the "pain and suffering" caused by public institutions and state employees' involved in "cruel" forced adoptions.  The UK government has previously said it was sorry "on behalf of society" for what happened, but unlike the Welsh, Scottish and Irish governments has not formally apologised for its role in forced adoptions.  A Department for Education spokesperson said: "We have the deepest sympathy with all of those who are affected by historic forced adoption. The practice was abhorrent and should never have taken place.  "We will look to learn from the approach of the devolved nations, and will explore what more can be done to support those impacted."

In relation to allegations of neglect and abuse at St Monica's Mother and Baby Home in Cumbria, a spokesperson for The Diocese of Carlisle described the accounts as "shocking" and said "we are deeply sorry that people suffered in this way".

"We were made aware of the burial of babies who had died at St Monica's in an area of Parkside Cemetery in Kendal," a statement read.

"We immediately alerted Cumbria Constabulary and have continued to ensure they have had access to all available records."

Anyone affected by the issues raised in this report can contact the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser at safeguarding.adviser@carlislediocese.org.uk or Safe Spaces at safespaces@firstlight.org.uk.

Cumbria Constabulary told ITV News that "to date, no crimes have been identified", in relation to the former St Monica's home and Parkside Road Cemetery in Kendal.

While Westmorland and Furness Council and Cumberland Council explained that burials in "unpurchased or public graves were fairly common" as "families often didn't have sufficient resources to pay for a funeral".

12

Articles / 'I took a DNA test it blew my life apart'

« on: November 01, 2025, 04:27:16 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kv2zl48po

'I took a DNA test it blew my life apart'

Joshua Askew
South East

Published 25 October 2025

People whose family tracing did not go to plan are warning others about the risks, with one man saying he would not do it "if he had his time again".

Following his father's death in 2022, John from East Sussex said his wife bought him a family DNA testing kit as a Christmas present to cheer him up.  But when the results came back, he found out his dad was not his biological father and he was, in fact, the son of a family friend.  "I was devastated," John said. "It completely upended everything I thought I knew."

The 60-year-old said he felt "perversely lucky" since the parents involved had passed away, sparing him "difficult conversations".

But he added there was also "no-one to get answers from".

"My mother would have made an amazing poker player because she kept a straight face for 50 years," John continued. "No one had a clue."

'Dirty secret'

John said his newly discovered half siblings largely refused to speak to him, with one even becoming hostile when he approached them, though another provided him with medical history.  He had counselling over what happened viewing himself as a "dirty secret" but said he was now at peace.  John said TV programmes and genealogy companies "drive this theory that every outcome is good, that you'll find war heroes or a suffragette, but lots of people don't."

He had seen cases of people discovering they were the result of rape, incest and "all sorts of horror stories", he said.

John added DNA testing kits should better warn about possible bad outcomes and urged people not to romanticise family tracing.  "In this day and age, you get warned about the salt level in your bacon but people [can get] their whole lives [and] mental health blown apart," he said.

DNA testing kits generally warn about potentially life-altering outcomes either before purchase or when accessing results, although there have been calls to improve these warnings.  Chrissie, from Surrey, said she was reunited with her sister Jennifer, who was forcibly put up for adoption, after 74 years.  She said her "darling" but "sneaky" daughter Kelly had tracked Jennifer down and arranged for them to speak over the phone.  "It was so surreal," Chrissie said. "We spoke as if we'd known each other for years."

Kelly then arranged a surprise meet between the pair.  "We just stood staring at each other," Chrissie said. "My goodness, it was like looking at my twin."
   
But, despite having a lovely time together, Chrissie said Jennifer later severed ties as their lives were "so different".  "Life isn't always a bed of roses," she told BBC Radio Sussex.

"But at least I have seen her. I wanted to know if she was alive, if she has family and what she was like that can't be taken away.  It's a happy ending to a story with a little sad twist."

'Never stop looking'

Chrissie said people searching for long-lost relatives should prepare to not get the outcome they want.  But she added: "Hold on to your dreams, never stop looking".

While in his experience the majority of experiences are positive, Mike Hancock, national strategic lead at PAC-UK, an organisation supporting adopted families, said tracing could be a "very, very complicated area because family secrets are buried extremely deep".

He urged people to seek support from friends, relatives and professional agencies before starting out.  He also recommended sending letters to newly discovered relatives through an intermediary, rather than contacting them directly as this could be shocking.  Mr Hancock said in his experience most people thought it was ultimately better to know than not, even if they uncovered difficult things.  "But it is still disturbing," he added.

13

Articles / Psychologist whose advice led to at least a dozen children being removed ....

« on: October 26, 2025, 03:52:11 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15227741/Psychologist-advice-led-dozen-children-removed-mothers-evidence-thrown-custody-case.html

Psychologist whose advice led to at least a dozen children being removed from their mothers has evidence thrown out in custody case

By HANNAH SUMMERS

Published: 09:06, 26 October 2025 | Updated: 09:06, 26 October 2025

A psychologist accused of peddling ‘harmful pseudoscience’ whose advice led to at least a dozen children being removed from their mothers has had her evidence thrown out in a landmark legal ruling.  Melanie Gill describes herself as a ‘highly specialised’ expert who has been paid tens of thousands of pounds to give evidence in more than 150 family court disputes many of which involve decisions over whether to remove children from parents.  Critics, however, claim that Gill makes hugely controversial assessments of families based on a disputed concept called ‘parental alienation’, where a child has rejected one of their parents after supposedly being manipulated by another.  Now, in a landmark legal judgement, a high court judge has rejected evidence by Gill which led to a mother losing custody of her two daughters.  The bombshell ruling by Mrs Justice Judd, revealed following an investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, has thrown the family courts into crisis amid calls for a review of cases in which Gill has been used as an expert witness.  In an exclusive interview, the mother at the centre of the case this weekend said Gill’s evidence had torn her family apart.  The mother has only been allowed to see her two daughters under strict supervision once a fortnight after Gill told the family court that she was a ‘narcissist’ who had alienated her children against their father.  ‘The damage caused by Melanie Gill will stay with me and my girls for a lifetime,’ she said.

‘I’ve missed out on all the important milestones in their lives: school plays, birthdays, sports days, first periods, graduations.’

Gill stated that the woman’s children had suffered ‘emotional and psychological harm’ as a result of her parenting and would continue to do so if they were returned to her care without her receiving therapy.  As a result, a judge ordered that the girls should live with their father a decision made against the advice of a social worker and despite allegations, which he denies, that he had mistreated the children.  Gill was paid £10,688 for her assessment of the woman’s family.  But in a judgment published last week, Mrs Justice Judd ruled Gill’s report and the subsequent findings should be disregarded because they were based on a ‘mistaken foundation’.  This followed a crucial ruling by Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the family division, in 2022 that parental alienation ‘is not a syndrome capable of diagnosis’ and that instead a judge should look at the facts of the case.  The mother said the ordeal has done irreparable damage to her relationship with her children, who were six and nine when they were taken from her. For the last five years she has not seen or spoken to them on Christmas Day or on Mother’s Day.  The ruling throws the spotlight on the controversial use of unregulated experts by the courts. A former music promoter with a third-class degree in psychology, Gill is not registered with the Health and Care Professions Council. Guidance. Judges can appoint experts who are not regulated, although the body which sets the rules for the family courts is considering whether to ban the use of such witnesses.  Last night, in a major intervention, Claire Waxman, the incoming Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, called on Sir Andrew to now review every case where Gill or any other unregulated expert has diagnosed ‘parental alienation’ and where children were subsequently removed from parents.  ‘I’ve seen appalling cases where unregulated “parental alienation” experts have torn children from their protective mothers who were victims of domestic or sexual abuse, and even led to children being handed back to the very person who harmed them, all because those experts dismissed disclosures of abuse as lies.  This judgment must signal an end to this harmful practice, once and for all.  It is a national scandal that unregulated ‘experts’ have been given such unchecked power, endangering mothers and children and inflicting irreversible damage.’

Dr Jaime Craig, chair of the Association of Clinical Psychologists UK, said the mother’s case is ‘just the tip of the iceberg’.  ‘Gill is far from the only expert who has been diagnosing “parental alienation” in the family courts based on harmful pseudoscience.’

Family barrister Charlotte Proudman said: ‘This ruling could have significant ramifications for other families which have been torn apart because of false diagnoses which are wrongly accepted by judges.’

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: ‘We share the concerns about these unregulated “parental alienation” experts and we are working with the Family Procedure Rule Committee to prevent them from giving evidence in the family courts.’

It is understood that Ms Gill asserts that she is an expert psychologist in family dynamics and an attachment specialist, with around 19 years’ experience of providing expert reports in care and legal proceedings.  During a 2023 case, she told a court: ‘I have been challenged and questioned on my qualifications in every single private law case I have ever undertaken and I have never been criticised.’

Ms Gill was approached for comment.

14

Articles / I always wondered about the little boy in the mysterious photo in my ....

« on: October 16, 2025, 05:14:54 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-15193659/I-wondered-little-boy-mysterious-photo-mothers-house-brother-given-44-Ive-finally-met-time.html

I always wondered about the little boy in the mysterious photo in my mother's house. Then, I found out he was my brother who was given up, now at 44, I've finally met him for the first time

    Diane's strict father made her put her eldest child up for adoption
    READ MORE: Long Lost Family viewers are left 'broken' and 'sobbing their hearts out' as woman, 71, reunites with her son 55 years after she was forced to give him up for adoption by her ashamed mother

By ALANAH KHOSLA, FEMAIL REPORTER

Published: 12:53, 15 October 2025 | Updated: 12:54, 15 October 2025

A man has revealed his joy at finally meeting his older brother after wondering about his wellbeing and whereabouts his entire life.  Delivery driver Mark Thorpe, 44, from East Norfolk, spotted a photograph of a baby beside his mother's bed as a child, and somehow knew it wasn't him, leaving him to question throughout his early years who the mystery boy was.  It wasn't until he was aged five that his mother, Diane, eventually revealed to him that the little boy in the photograph was his older brother, whom she was made to give up for adoption.  Mark said, 'I was always intrigued by this photo; there were multiple copies of this all around the house. This one was beside her bed, and she had it tattooed on her arm as well.'

There was never a day that went by that Mark's mother didn't think about her first child, whom she had given up for adoption at the age of 19, due to the strict nature of her parents.  'In the years that followed, I know she struggled mentally,' Mark said, adding, 'I know when I was growing up, she went through bouts of depression, and I think my mum's anxieties maybe stemmed from the adoption.'

When his mother sadly died aged 73 in 2023, Mark made the decision to search for his long lost brother, who was originally called Kevin but later named Martin by his adoptive parents.  In an emotional episode of ITV's Long Lost Family, which airs on Thursday, Mark finally fulfils his lifelong wish and meets his older brother after years of living in the unknown.  Thinking back to his childhood, Mark said, 'Mum and I were close, and everything seemed happy to me.'

But despite his positive upbringing, Mark acknowledged some emotional tension from his mother throughout his formative years, adding, 'There was this slight, not coldness, but reluctance to get too close or let too much out.'

It's a reality that Mark rooted back to the adoption of his older brother, and though he loved his late grandfather, he admitted that it was a decision made to please him.  During the episode, the delivery driver travelled back to his grandparents' home. He said, 'She must've been quite nervous telling my grandparents at that age.  The birth father made it clear that he wasn't going to stick around, and then my granddad said, 'Well, you can't keep that baby if you're not married.'  My granddad was stubborn, you weren't going to change his mind. I don't think she had a choice, she had nowhere else to go.'

Mark, a father to his three children, said, 'The thought of that, I'd be lost without my children, it would be like losing a part of your heart.'

After the adoption, Diane struggled with depression. Mark believes her illness was linked to the adoption.  Thinking back to his childhood, Mark said, 'Mum and I were close, and everything seemed happy to me.'

But despite his positive upbringing, Mark acknowledged some emotional tension from his mother throughout his formative years, adding, 'There was this slight, not coldness, but reluctance to get too close or let too much out.'

It's a reality that Mark rooted back to the adoption of his older brother, and though he loved his late grandfather, he admitted that it was a decision made to please him.

During the episode, the delivery driver travelled back to his grandparents' home. He said, 'She must've been quite nervous telling my grandparents at that age.  The birth father made it clear that he wasn't going to stick around, and then my granddad said, 'Well, you can't keep that baby if you're not married.'  My granddad was stubborn, you weren't going to change his mind. I don't think she had a choice, she had nowhere else to go.'

Mark, a father to his three children, said, 'The thought of that, I'd be lost without my children, it would be like losing a part of your heart.'

After the adoption, Diane struggled with depression. Mark believes her illness was linked to the adoption.  Recalling his childhood, Martin said, 'I couldn't have had a better situation to be adopted into than what I ended up in. There's only my mum still around now, she's the one who encouraged me to make use of my music.'

When Nicky informed him of his birth mother's story and how she never stopped loving him, Martin was reduced to tears. 'I'm really touched by that,' he said.

He was delighted to hear that his birth brother longed to meet him.  In a heartwarming conclusion, the brothers finally meet for the first time.  Initially, Mark is apologetic, saying, 'I just think it was such a bombshell for you. I was the one setting the bomb off.'

To which Martin replied, 'Yeah, but it turned out to be full of glitter.'

Mark, emotional but elated by their meeting, said, 'He's full of life and funny. I can tell we have a slightly similar sense of humour,' adding,  'It'd be great to take him to Norfolk to see the rest of the family.'

His older brother was equally pleased with the meeting, saying, 'I think he's a really deep person, I know he's full of interesting stories to tell me, not just about me, but about him as well, so I look forward to that.'

15

Articles / Teacher denies murder and sexual assault against 13-month-old boy he was ....

« on: October 14, 2025, 10:51:46 AM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15187353/Teacher-denies-murder-sexual-assault-against-13-month-old-boy-adopting.html

Teacher denies murder and sexual assault against 13-month-old boy he was adopting

By RICHARD MARSDEN, GENERAL REPORTER

Published: 14:00, 13 October 2025 | Updated: 16:22, 13 October 2025

Teacher denies murder and sexual assault against 13-month-old boy he was adopting

By RICHARD MARSDEN, GENERAL REPORTER

Published: 14:00, 13 October 2025 | Updated: 16:22, 13 October 2025

A former secondary school head of year has denied the murder and sexual assault of a toddler – plus over 30 other charges.

Jamie Varley showed no emotion as he answered pleas of 'not guilty' when each count was put to him.

The 36-year-old is accused of killing 13-month-old Preston Davey, who he and his co-accused, John McGowan-Fazakerley, were in the process of adopting.

Varley appeared at Preston Crown Court for the 45-minute hearing this morning via video link from the city's prison.

McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, appeared at the same hearing by video link from HMP Durham.

Preston's mother sat sobbing in the public gallery of the courtroom as the charges were read.

Judge Robert Altham, Honorary Recorder of Preston said: 'I can only imagine how challenging that was for Preston's mother to hear. I'm sorry, but it does have to be done.'

Varley denies the murder and manslaughter of Preston on July 27, 2023.