'Government's forced adoption apology is too late'

A man whose biological mother was forced to give him up for adoption said the government's apology was "far too late".

Reg Barker, 66, from Mildenhall, Suffolk, found out he was adopted aged 18 and later learned that his mother from Bristol had been forced to give him up by hospital staff.

An estimated 185,000 babies were taken from their mothers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, with many women pressured into giving up their children because they were unmarried.

Sir Keir Starmer said in a statement on Thursday that the practice was "a stain on our history", but Barker stated his birth parents would never hear the apology.

"I've still got to take it all in.... but I said recently to some other people, it's far too little, far too late," he told BBC Radio Bristol's John Darvall.

"My [birth] mother won't hear that apology. My birth father won't hear that apology.

"It's far too late for all the children and all the adults involved," he said.

Barker was about three and a half years old when he was adopted, but he did not find out until he was 18 when he went to apply for a passport.

He said it had been a "complete shock" and he spent 45 years to trace his birth family.

Barker encouraged anyone who was adopted and looking for their birth family to "please do it".

"Those who have been adopted and gone through the system through forced adoption, whether it's the parent or whether it's a child, you are incredibly brave.

"Nobody should feel any shame, nobody at all.

"I don't want anybody anywhere in this country or abroad who's been adopted or had to go through forced adoption of their children to ever feel any shame.

"I want everybody to understand you are brave," he said

Sir Keir apologised on behalf of the British state in a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday, which came after years of campaigning from mothers, adoptees and their wider families.

He said the forced adoptions were not isolated or accidental acts, but part of practices "embedded" across local authorities, religious organisations and parts of what is now the NHS.

"All institutions that operated with power over people's lives, yet they did so without compassion, without consent, and without dignity or proper safeguards" he told the Commons.

He continued: "We are deeply and profoundly sorry to the mothers who were told they were unfit, who were prevented from caring for the children they desperately wanted to help and to keep, and who have carried this loss for decades."

Do you have a story suggestion for Suffolk? Contact us below.

Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.