Missing Pieces: The Lesbian Mothers Scandal

Available for over a year

From the 1970s through to even the early 1990s, a shocking pattern existed where the UK courts removed children from lesbian mums. Journalist Sophie Wilkinson investigates the legacy of homophobic UK courts on lesbian mothers and meets those still dealing with the trauma of having their families ripped apart. She meets Linda Bellos, who was only able to see her kids once a month after a family court judge found out she was a lesbian, and a woman in her 70s who had to pretend not to be gay in order to maintain custody of her children. While the practice largely stopped after the passage of the Children Act in 1989, those affected have never received any redress or apology, and the full scale of the scandal has never been exposed. Presenter and Producer: Sophie Wilkinson Producer: Emily Uchida Finch Assistant Producer: Daniel Pearce Executive Producer: Robert Nicholson Additional research: Gareth Lemon and Kate Litman A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4