‘I used to be pressured to surrender my child at 17 – Starmer’s apology has lastly freed me of disgrace’

EXCLUSIVE: After years of campaigning, heartbreak and shame, mum Jill Killingston describes the moment she heard Keir Starmer apologise to thousands of women like her who were forced to give up their babies for adoption

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Sitting in the public gallery among many other sobbing mothers, Jill Killington was in floods of tears as the Prime Minister issued an apology to victims of the forced adoption scandal.

At 17, the mum was cruelly coerced into giving up her newborn son – all because he was born out of wedlock. Jill had been with the child’s father for six months before he upped and left, and spent just nine days with her baby before he too was ripped away.

Now 76, Jill has spent most of her adult life wracked with guilt and shame that was never hers to carry. And she is not alone. On Thursday, Keir Starmer addressed 185,000 women in England and Wales – most of them unmarried teenagers – who, between 1949 and the introduction of the Adoption Act in 1976, were pressured into giving up their babies for adoption.

The outgoing PM called the scandal a “stain on our history” and made it clear it should have never happened. Addressing the affected mothers, he said: “The shame is not yours. The shame was never yours. The shame is ours. And I say that on behalf of the whole country, I say it to every single person impacted, 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.”

Hearing Starmer’s words of accountability flooded Jill with emotion. Finally, she felt free. “I spent so many years thinking it was my fault [for getting pregnant],” Jill bravely tells the Mirror. “Then losing your baby as well. For so long the guilt and shame was on me, I’d brought shame to my family.”

The mum has been waiting for this moment for a decade. But the pain of losing her son Ian Pritchard, now 58, will never go away. “It’s still so hard looking back,” she says. “It was such a final cut moment when he was taken away, I was only 17.”

On December 24 in 1967, Jill had to say goodbye to her 10-day-old son. Instead of tucking him up ready for the joys of Christmas, she cried herself to sleep. As a young unmarried woman, keeping him was out of the question. Instead, he was taken away by foster carers to be put up for adoption.

“There was a terrible stigma around illegitimacy,” Jill explains. “People would look down on mothers who had a child outside of wedlock. My parents took me to see the GP and he told me that, as I was single, my baby should be adopted. Nobody asked me what I wanted. I felt absolutely powerless.”

She was six months into a relationship when she fell pregnant. After discussing marriage, her boyfriend fled. Now, after 10 years of campaigning along with many other mothers who found themselves in the same situation, justice has finally come.

Describing the mood in Parliament as Starmer delivered his speech, Jill says: “People were quietly sobbing in the gallery it was very emotional. The words Starmer spoke were very sincere, it was so compassionate and it really got to me, it triggered me to tears when he said the shame is on the government, not the mothers.

“It’s taken 10 years of campaigning to get that apology. We did a documentary 10 years ago and it wasnt until then I really started to think it wasn’t right what had happened and it should have never happened. I finally realised it wasn’t my fault.”

On December 15 every year – Ian’s birthday – the pain of giving him up felt particularly acute. At the time of the adoption, Jill was asked to sign a form to say she wouldn’t contact him, but when the law changed in 1976, she added her name to the National Adoption Register. Finally, in 1994 – 27 years after she gave birth – a letter arrived.

“I suppose there’s no easy way to say this, but I think I’m your son and you’re my mother,” Ian wrote. Ian had moved to New Zealand with his adoptive family when he was six and had been trying to find his birth mum for years.

After months of correspondence, in December 1994 they met in New Zealand. Jill says: “It was amazing – I could see him rushing to greet me and we hugged for ages.” Meanwhile, Ian tells us: “We just stared at each other for ages.”

Over the last 30 years, since they reunited in New Zealand, Jill and Ian have formed a strong bond. But he struggled to cope growing up because he felt like he didn’t belong.

“I ran away from home from an early age,” he says. “By the time I was 18, I was diagnosed as a chronic alcoholic and by 20 I had been in and out of detox. There’s no question that being adopted made it difficult living in my skin.”

Ian sympathises with his mum, but made clear he’s angry at the government for their failures. Speaking to us in 2024, he said: “Jill should have been given the support she needed to raise her child. But instead they took her baby away from her on Christmas Eve, while families around her were celebrating the festivities and singing Silent Night – it’s just appalling.”

Thankfully, the family have finally been able to make some happy memories together. Jill’s two other children have also formed a special bond with their brother. “We speak to him every few weeks, and my daughter went over to New Zealand to stay with him,” she says.

In 2022, the Joint Committee on Human Rights conducted an inquiry into forced adoption practices and concluded that mothers were subject to cruel and inhumane treatment and that they and their children suffered long-term effects.

But, despite the committee calling on the Government to make a formal apology and to put in place appropriate support services, that apology never came – until now.

During his speech, Starmer said: “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.

“To those who were not given the information they needed to provide informed consent, who faced pressure or coercion, and who experienced practices that were unethical. To the sons and daughters, the children who are now adults, who through pressure and coercion within these systems, were taken from their families and denied their identity, their history, and sometimes their safety.”

He firmly told the mothers: “It should never have happened. And you should not have had to fight for this day to come. But today, finally, I do say on behalf of the State – and on behalf of the nation as a whole – We see you. We hear you. And we are truly sorry.”

“People say to leave it in the past as the adoption was years ago, but we carry our past into the future, we just learn to live with it,” Jill says. “All of these emotions just came pouring out this week and I feel greatly relieved.”

Thanks to pilot funding from Adoption England, national charity Family Action – which helps birth parents, adopted people and relatives prepare for reconnecting with their long-lost families – is expanding its FamilyConnect offer to support more people like Jill and her son to reconnect. For more information, visit their website.