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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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.

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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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

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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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.

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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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.”

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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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".

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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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.

7

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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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.

8

Articles / My beloved sons were removed by social services and put up for adoption......

« Last post by RDsmum on October 24, 2025, 03:12:41 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/lifestyle/family-parenting/article-15221239/sons-social-services-adoption-unfit-mothers-Angela-Frazer-Wicks.html

My beloved sons were removed by social services and put up for adoption. But read my story before you judge 'unfit' mothers like me, says Angela Frazer-Wicks

By HELEN CARROLL FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Published: 01:08, 24 October 2025 | Updated: 09:47, 24 October 2025

Angela Frazer-Wicks will never forget the sunny July day she strapped her two little boys into a stranger's car and waved goodbye acutely, heartbreakingly aware that she was unlikely ever to see them again.  A social worker was driving them away to be adopted, after Angela, then 29, had been deemed an 'unfit' mother.  As the car carrying her sons, then five and 14 months, pulled away, Angela's knees buckled and she fell to the ground.  'The last words I said to my sons, through the car window, were 'Mammy loves you and I'll write really soon'. Then they were gone,' recalls Angela.

'The pain was so intense, I honestly don't know how I ever stood back up. I stayed in bed for days, wishing I was dead.'

This is a story that is very rarely told. While parents who adopt children who have been removed from birth families have been known to speak out, mothers who lose their offspring in this way rarely do. Perhaps understandably, as these extreme measures are shrouded in shame, and sympathy is scant. It is assumed that if your children are taken off you, you must be at worst violent or abusive, at best feckless.  No one imagines you might be a victim of circumstances yourself.  At the same time, social workers must put the child's best interests first. We have all heard of the tragic cases where children died at the hands of the parents who were wrongly deemed fit to keep them. So why would Angela wish to stick her head above the parapet to speak about this controversial topic?

She says she has chosen to share her story in National Adoption Week to help raise awareness that not all mothers like her are 'abusive monsters' and how crucial post-adoption support is.  'Most people, just as I once did, believe that all birth mothers must have done something hideously bad for our children to be taken away from us,' she says.

'I'm as sickened as anyone by the tragic tales of children being subjected to the most awful things at the hands of parents because social workers haven't stepped in. But, when they do, it's not always because of abuse or severe neglect.  'I hope that my experience illustrates how very complicated the stories of those of us who find ourselves in this deeply sad situation can be.'

After all, Angela's current life couldn't be more different to the situation she found herself in when her sons were taken away. Now 50, she is a respectable married mother to a daughter, 14, living in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. And, perhaps most surprisingly, she is now in regular contact with her elder son an unexpected outcome she describes as 'something that brings me more joy than I'd ever hoped possible'.

Indeed, such is the dramatic turnaround that in 2023 Angela was awarded an MBE for services to children and families, recognising her work with child welfare charity the Family Rights Group.  Rewind two decades to 2004, when Angela lost her sons, Jonathon and Joseph, and it was a different story.  Back then she was in an abusive relationship with the father of her younger son, who had coerced her into taking heroin a drug he himself was addicted to after insisting it would ease her ongoing pain after her caesarean scar burst following the birth of her elder boy.  While Angela never hurt her sons and says they were always fed and clean, she was warned that if she couldn't keep her violent partner out of her children's lives, they would be taken into care.  'I understand they were worried about my sons, knowing how violent my partner was and that we were both dependent on drugs, but what I needed was support to get away from him, to get off drugs and with raising my children,' says Angela.

'The mistake they made was in seeing me as the problem the person my children needed taking away from not, with the right help, someone who could be part of the solution.'

As the council house they lived in was in her partner's name and she was not permitted to change the locks, even once a restraining order was put in place, she was unable to keep him away.  'I know there is very little sympathy for birth parents like me, but having your children taken away is the hardest and most painful thing any mother could experience,' says Angela, who has now been clean for almost 20 years.

'I would have given anything to be able to raise my sons myself, but I just didn't have the means, or support, to keep them safe.'

It was three years before she turned her life around with the help of a drug rehabilitation programme and following the organisation After Adoption putting her in contact with the Family Rights Group. And, while feeling 'eternally grateful' to her sons' adoptive parents for the 'wonderful' childhoods they had, she dearly wishes she had been able to achieve that before she lost the chance to raise them.  Like many who find themselves in such intensely fraught situations, Angela had a troubled upbringing.  Growing up in the North East, her father, now dead, was physically abusive, beating her with a belt and slippers throughout her childhood.  She left home aged 19 and had little further contact with her parents. When she became pregnant at 23 in 1998, the father chose not to be in her son's life.  The birth of her first son ended in a C-section and, a few days later, back home alone with baby Jonathon, the scar split.  'My insides basically came out of the wound, and I had to pick them up in my dressing gown and phone for an ambulance,' Angela says. 'I was rushed to hospital where the doctors saved my life.'

Traumatised and in a great deal of pain, Angela contacted her local authority to ask if any help could be provided before her return home. She was assigned a family support worker, a woman called Christine, who she credits with helping her turn her life around.  With Christine's help, she found a nursery place for Jonathon, enrolled on a law course at a local college and worked full-time as a paralegal. While paying rent to a private landlord, Angela also managed to save money towards a deposit on a house.  However, when Jonathon was 19 months old, Angela met a man who seemed 'kind and charming', but who turned out to be anything but.  'He showed me a lot of concern and compassion that I'd not experienced in relationships before,' she says. 'He made me laugh and was lovely with my son.'

But when, a few weeks later, she agreed he could move in with her, his kindness quickly turned into coercive control.  'He always had to know where I was, who I was talking to and accused me of having affairs with people at work,' she recalls. 'Within a few months of him moving in, everything fell apart.  Out of the blue I received an eviction notice and discovered that he'd been stealing the rent money, pretending to pay it and then forging the rent book. He'd also stolen my house deposit.  Trying to repay the rent, I didn't have enough money to put my son into nursery, which meant I couldn't get to work, so within a matter of weeks I lost my job, my home, my car. Everything.'

It was then that Angela discovered her partner who died in 2013 was a heroin addict who had relapsed and spent her money on drugs. He had also been stealing the codeine tablets she was taking for abdominal pain from the caesarean.  Apologetic, he promised to find them somewhere else to live securing a council house, in his name and that, once they were settled, he would go to rehab.  It was then that Angela succumbed to taking illegal drugs. When her codeine ran out her GP refused to prescribe more as she was already on the maximum dose. Her partner convinced her that 'a little bit of heroin' would help.  I was in so much pain it was difficult to function,' Angela recalls. 'So I decided to smoke a tiny bit of heroin, thinking it was just until I could get my prescription filled.  But that's not the way that heroin works and, before I knew it, I was completely dependent. The hardest thing of all to bear was how badly I'd let my son down.'

Desperate to turn her life around, Angela contacted social services in the hope of reconnecting with Christine. But by then the council no longer employed family support workers and she was assigned a social worker, who urged her to come off the drugs without offering help to do so.  Living in fear of her violent partner while trying, unsuccessfully, to manage her own withdrawal from heroin, Angela had a breakdown. It was while she was in hospital that Jonathon, then three, was first put in temporary foster care.  Shortly after returning home, Angela discovered she was pregnant with her second child.  Initially, not wanting a baby, her partner walked out. The pregnancy meant she was moved up the list for drug rehabilitation, and she was able to get completely clean with a methadone withdrawal programme in her second trimester.  Four weeks before the baby was due, Jonathon was finally allowed to go back home, a joyous moment for Angela.  However, shortly before the birth her partner also returned, apologising and claiming the prospect of fatherhood had scared him, because his dad had deserted him when he was a baby.  After Joseph's birth, things deteriorated exponentially. When Joseph was six weeks old, Angela went into septic shock after it was found some of the placenta had remained in her uterus. Doctors managed to save her life, only for her partner to throw her down the stairs, fracturing her ribs and breaking her thumb.  She went to court to get a non-molestation order so he would be arrested if he went near her or the children. But the same day, social workers turned up at the door bearing the news that her children were now on the 'at risk register', because she had failed to protect them from seeing her being assaulted.  She was then 'forced' to sign an agreement that should she allow her now former partner near them, the children would be removed immediately.  Over the next four weeks, her ex would regularly let himself into the house: 'I'd wake in the middle of the night, and he'd be standing over me, saying 'Give me money, or I'm going to tell them I've been here and you'll lose the kids'.'

Police said that without evidence there was no proof he'd broken the non-molestation order. In desperation, Angela pleaded with staff at her local social services offices to find her and the children somewhere to live where he wouldn't find them.  Instead, the following day a social worker and two police officers turned up at the door and announced that her children were being taken into care because, in admitting that her ex had been in the house, she had 'failed to protect' them from him and broken the terms of the order she had signed.  That day in 2004 was the last time Angela's sons were under her roof. She spent the next year attending access visits and undergoing a psychological assessment in an attempt to get them back.  But when a psychologist's report stated she would need a minimum of 18 months instead of the required 12 months of therapy to be 'in a position to parent', she was told her children would be adopted. 'I was utterly devastated,' she says. 'I became severely depressed. Stopped answering the phone, stopped going to contact meetings, because seeing my sons was too painful, and not one person checked on me.'

Angela went on to attempt suicide and was offered a place in a women's refuge, which she accepted. Angela was eventually convinced to give written permission for the adoption as she no longer had the strength or support to continue fighting. Over the next few months, she began attending contact sessions again.  'I wanted to make some precious memories with them in the time we had left,' she says.

'Those meetings, in soulless access centres, were incredibly bittersweet. As the final one approached, in the July, all I could think was: 'How can I tell my five-year-old son that we'll soon have to say goodbye?' But I needn't have worried because he took me by the hand and said, 'Mam, you'd better sit down, I've got some bad news for you. Not next week, but the week after is the last time you're ever going to see either of us again. Are you going to be OK on your own?'

Angela becomes tearful at the memory.  Despite the crippling loss and grief, by the end of 2005 Angela had completed a methadone programme and was free of drugs.  She moved away from the North East to Norfolk, where she met her husband Paul, 43, head of technical in a food production company.  Still, she thought about her sons every day, all the more so after having her daughter. Desperate to avoid any investigations following her daughter's birth, Angela contacted social services while pregnant.  Following an assessment, social workers confirmed they had no child protection concerns.  In the early years she'd had 'letterbox contact' with her sons, annual letters with photographs.  However, that stopped when her eldest reached his teenage years and his adoptive mother wrote explaining that they were moving to Australia and he was struggling with the thought of maintaining the connection. Angela insists that her priority was respecting her sons' wishes and doing whatever was in their interests.  Then, out of the blue, in December 2020 she received an email from her old local authority saying Jonathon, by then 22, would like to hear from her and passing on an email address.  'I sent a message saying, 'I'm absolutely over the moon to be in touch, but there's no pressure' and got an instant reply, 'Hi, Mum. This has been a long time coming, hasn't it?'  I couldn't believe he was back in my life, and calling me Mum,' says Angela, smiling, with glistening eyes.

They have stayed in regular contact since, and last October Jonathon came to visit, with his wife. 'Exactly 20 years, three months and 14 days after hugging him goodbye, I hugged him hello again,' says Angela.

'There just aren't words to describe how wonderful that moment was for me. I'd never dared dream it would happen.  'It felt like the most natural thing in the world.'

As well as rejoicing at having Jonathon back in her life, she was touched by the bond that developed between her son and daughter, who had heard so much about her brothers.  Joseph has not had the same desire to reconnect with Angela, a decision she respects, wanting him to do whatever feels right.  Angela tries to be compassionate with her younger self. 'Although it makes me sad, I can't turn back the clock and there's little point in thinking about all the years I didn't have with my sons. If things had been different, I'm unlikely to have met my husband and my daughter wouldn't exist. Likewise, I couldn't have given them the wonderful life they've had with their adoptive parents, and I'd never want to take that away from any of them.'

Jonathon and Joseph's names have been changed

For more information and support visit the Family Rights Group child welfare charity (frg.org.uk) or PAC-UK at pac-uk.org

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see samaritans.org for details

9

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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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.'

10

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

« Last post by Forgotten Mother 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.