Latest news with #JudithKilshaw
Daily Record
8 hours ago
- Daily Record
'Most hated' UK woman who bought US babies for £8k has 'no regrets'
Judith Kilshaw and her then-husband paid over £8,000 to adopt a pair of six-month-old twins from the United States,. A woman who was branded one of Britain's 'most hated' after her part in a transatlantic baby-buying scandal, says she still dreams of seeing the twin girls she brought to the UK. Judith Kilshaw and her then-husband paid over £8,000 to adopt a pair of six-month-old twins from the United States, despite the girls already being promised to another couple. Dubbed the "cash-for-babies" scandal, Judith and her-then-husband Alan caused intense outrage after taking the children from Missouri to Wales, only for social services to intervene just weeks later and send them straight back to the US, The Mirror reports. The retired cleaner, 71, though admits she has "no regrets" about the incident that brought her to global infamy. "It's haunted me for years," she said, speaking to the Mail from her home in Wrexham. "But I've never believed I did anything wrong, I just wanted to give them a better life." The notorious incident began when Judith, unable to conceive even after rounds of IVF treatment, turned to an American adoption agency out of desperation. She and her former husband, who was a solicitor, paid $14000 for the two girls, Kiara and Keyara, who were later renamed Belinda and Kimberley. What they did not know was that the unfortunate twins had already been living with a Californian couple, Richard and Vickie Allen, who had begun their own adoption process. In a shocking twist in an already astounding international "baby buying" scandal, the twins' birth mother handed the children over to the Kilshaws during a supposed "farewell visit" from their new Californian family. This move sparked a legal tug of war between the purchasing parents. The couple drove the girls across several US states to secure papers that would allow them to take them back to the UK. But they had barely got off the plane before the outcry began at all levels. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Prime Minister Tony Blair called the deal"repugnant" and the courts quickly move to annul the adoption. Within months, the children were taken from the Kilshaws and returned to America. The fallout was intense and prolonged, Judith and Alan lost their farmhouse, became riddles with debt and eventually, their marriage fell apart as well. "We were just ordinary people caught up in something bigger than us," Judith reflected, 24 years later. She would go on to marry Stephen Sillett, a musician 13 years younger than her. Remarkably, at her wedding, it was none other than ex-husband Alan that gave her away. However, this relationship too would eventually break after Judith made headlines again in 2012 when she admitted to hitting Stephen with a Christmas decoration in a holiday row. They are now separated due to the cost of divorce proceedings, but remain friends. Following Alan's death in 2019, Judith said her husband's final wish was for her to try to reconnect with the girls. "He always saw them as ours," she told the Mail, "he never stopped loving them." In the time since the scandal, Judith has lived a quiet life, though she admits the story never quite disappeared. She's even been recognised while out shopping by random strangers who remember her frontpage infamy. In 2018, Judith finally learned information about the two girls she had flown across the Atlantic, discovering that they were raised by a churchgoing family. "I've never had the chance to explain my side to them," she said. "If they ever want to talk, I'll be here."
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I was branded Britain's most hated woman for buying twin babies online for £8k in 'cash for babies scandal'... here's what happened next
She was branded the most hated woman in Britain after paying more than £8,000 to buy twin babies from the US on the internet. Judith Kilshaw found herself at the centre of an international scandal after adopting the six-month old girls who had already been sold to a childless couple in America. More than 20 years on, Judith admits her life had been 'plagued' by the global controversy which ended with her losing the children - along with her home and her marriage. But defiant Judith, 71, insists she has 'no regrets' and told how she has not given up hope of being reunited with the twins. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline from her home in Wrexham, Judith told MailOnline: 'I have thought a lot about the case over the years and asked myself if I regretted doing it. 'To a certain extent it has plagued my life - it never goes away. 'It was a nightmare to start with but time heals things. There's bigger things to think about. 'But I have no regrets. I thought I could give the girls a better life and give them opportunities in life. Alan and Judith Kelshaw (pictured) sparked a 'cash-for babies' outcry in 2001 after they paid £8,200 to adopt Kiara and Keyara Wecker 'I would still love to talk to the girls to make sure they are OK and answer any questions they might have. 'I am open to speaking to them but I have never spoken to them. But if they wanted to, I would love to get in touch.' Judith and her solicitor husband Alan sparked a 'cash-for babies' outcry in 2001 after they paid £8,200 to adopt Kiara and Keyara Wecker. They brought the twins, who they renamed Belinda and Kimberley, to Britain hoping to start a new life as a family at their seven-bedroom farmhouse in Buckley, north Wales. But things did not go according to plan. Then-prime minister Tony Blair called the adoption deal 'disgusting' and the twins were seized by social services and taken into emergency protection. They were returned to the US after a High Court judge annulled the adoption. Since then, Judith settled back into relative obscurity but much has happened in the intervening years, which can be revealed for the first time by MailOnline. In the aftermath of the scandal, things were never quite the same for the couple and, saddled with debts over the affair, they were evicted from their farmhouse months later. They moved into a bungalow in Chester but their 14-year marriage ended after Judith met a man 13 years her junior in a nightclub. Despite the split, she remained close to Alan and was at his bedside when he died aged 63 in January 2019. At the time she told of her sadness that he had never fulfilled his dream of meeting the girls again. She said: 'He told me he had always regarded the twins as ours and his last wish was for me to go to America and try to make contact with them. 'I don't know if this will be possible but I will do everything I can to honour his dying request.' Before the baby storm erupted, the couple had lived an anonymous, if somewhat eccentric, middle-class life in rural north Wales. They already had two sons and Judith had two grown up children from her first marriage. The couple wanted to have a daughter together but Judith was too old to conceive. They had spent £4,000 on unsuccessful IVF treatment and had looked into surrogacy before they turned to an online adoption agency in desperation. The US-based agency called A Caring Heart was run by Tina Johnson who was acting on behalf of the mother of the mixed race twins, Tranda Wecker, who was aged 28 at the time. Tranda, a hotel receptionist from Missouri, had fallen pregnant as her second marriage was coming to an end and had decided to part with her children. Unbeknown to Judith and Alan, the broker had already arranged the adoption of the twins with Californian couple Richard and Vickie Allen. They had paid £4,000 for the adoption and had cared for them for two months. Tranda reportedly had a change of heart and, while the couple were in the process of finalising legal paperwork, she was given permission to say a final farewell to her daughters. The American couple were told that Tranda wanted to spend two days with the twins - but instead they were handed to Judith and Alan. They set off with the twins to get their birth certificates before making a gruelling 1,500-mile car journey to Little Rock Arkansas, where adoption is relatively easy, with the Allens in hot pursuit. After a five-minute hearing the couple return to Britain with the twins and their adoption papers. But the FBI were called in to probe the case amid a bitter transatlantic war of words and a legal battle over the girls' future. The children were returned to the US in April 2001 where they were placed in foster care before a third set of parents eventually raised them. Judith has always insisted she did nothing wrong or illegal and believed the adoption would be in the best interests of the twins. But, in the aftermath of the affair, the couple racked up debts of £70,000. They were forced to quit the farmhouse where they lived with three of Judith's children along with six dogs, more than a dozen cats, two ferrets, a horse, a pony and two pot-bellied pigs. In the wake of her fight, Judith tried to get elected as an MP in 2005 after standing as an independent candidate in her local Alyn and Deeside constituency insisting she wanted to 'stand up for the little people'. She split with Alan in 2006 and three years later she married Stephen Sillett, who was described at the time as a busker. In the aftermath of the split, Judith was investigated for alleged benefits fraud arising from her living arrangements following the break-up. In a bizarre twist, Alan gave his ex-wife away when she married Stephen at Wrexham Register Office in 2009. She had a volatile relationship with her third husband and in 2012, Judith pleaded guilty at Wrexham Magistrates Court to assaulting Stephen after hitting over the head with a Christmas bauble following a row. Stephen had accused Judith, who now goes by her married name Sillett, of having an affair, she says. Judith told MailOnline: 'It was hardly crime of the century. He probably deserved it. 'However we stayed together. We are still legally married but have split up. 'We're still friends and speak all the time.' Meanwhile Alan had been struck down with pulmonary fibrosis, a serious lung disease, which left him in hospital for months before his death. Judith told how Stephen became jealous as she nursed her ex husband through his illness which led to her giving up her job as a cleaner in the Co-op. She told MailOnline: 'There were three of us in the relationship and men can't really handle that can they? 'I think he didn't like the attention I was giving Alan.' Of her life now she added: 'I now live with my son. I don't work as I have retired but I'm a bit of an agony aunt to all my friends.' Speaking from his terraced home in a village near Wrexham, Stephen, now 58, said: 'We're still legally married but are not together anymore. 'I don't think we can afford to get divorced.' Judith heard nothing more about the fate of the twins until 2018 when it was revealed they were starting university after being brought up by a loving churchgoing family in Missouri. Their adoptive mother said at the time: 'They have grown into fine young women, each with their own dreams and ambitions.' Since then two TV documentaries have been made about the case - one called Three Mothers, two Babies and a Scandal, which was shown on Amazon Prime in 2022 while a second named The Baby Scandal That Shocked The World was screened on Channel 5 last year. Judith told MailOnline: 'The case and furore of it all, never really goes away. 'In fact I was recognised by a woman in the supermarket the other day. 'She kept on staring at me, trying to work out who I was. Then she spoke to me asking if I was the woman from the babies case. 'She recognised me from being on telly a few years ago, but it was positive. She said I came across really well.'
