Adoption sale-row twins should have stayed in Wales, says ‘mother’

THE Welsh mother who caused a scandal by buying twin babies on the internet nearly 18 years ago says they should have stayed with the couple.

Judith Kilshaw and her then-husband, Alan, tried to adopt the children from their American mother after handing over £8,200. But after British social services stepped in, the babies were returned to the US, where they have since been brought up.

We reported yesterday that the girls, now 18, have started university and are studying social sciences.

It was the first time Judith, 64, had heard anything about the life of the babies she had cradled so long ago.

Speaking from her home in Wrexham, she said: “I’m pleased they are doing well. That is all I have ever really wanted, for them to have a stable life, to have a good life.”

But she insisted she should have been allowed to bring the girls up as her own.

“I think they should have stayed with me and Alan,” she said.

Judith still has faded photographs of the girls from their brief time in the UK.

And she admits she looks at them every now and then and wonders what might have been.

“They are 18? That has gone quick. I wonder what they look like?” she said.

“I wonder how they feel, the girls, I wonder if they have been told the truth of what happened. I do wonder if they know about me and Alan.

“I’m glad they have gone to university. I’m glad they are going to prosper and haven’t got pregnant at 16 or gone off the rails.

“I hope they do very well, I wish them all the best.”

Judith and Alan split in 2006 and three years later she married Stephen Sillett, now 51.

But she remains on good terms with her ex and he even walked her down the aisle at her wedding.

She and Stephen still live together in Rhosllanerchrugog, but when asked if they are a couple she said: “Not really – in a sense, yes, and in a sense, no. It is a bit of a muddle.”

Judith says she and Alan, who have two sons, James, 25, and Rupert, 22, often speak about the twin girls they had hoped to bring up.

“It’s a shame that they aren’t going to university around here, I wished they had stayed in Britain, we have very good universities in Britain.

“I would have wanted them to have made something of their life – be professional, get a good education, make good life choices.”

The mum of four, who has five cats and a dog and also looks after her ex’s five cats, said: “I wanted them to go into law or the medical field, or even the veterinary field. That would have been handy, with having all these animals.

“Sometimes I think about them, wonder where they are, how their life is going, because it could’ve gone very wrong, they could have ended up getting involved in the gang and gun culture, I would have blamed social services if that had happened.”

Judith has two daughters from an earlier relationship but has no contact with either of them. One lives in Seattle and the other in Edinburgh.

But she said she would love to speak to the twins.

Asked what she would say to them, she said: “Look at you now, haven’t you done well? I wish you could’ve stayed but I’m glad you’ve made something of your lives.”

She added: “I would like to see them again, would like to talk to them on video chat, to see how they are.

“Sometimes Alan and I talk about them, at times like Christmas especially.”

The twins were just six months old when they were caught in the centre of a transatlantic custody battle.

Judith and Alan, unable to have more children of their own, had explored international adoption opportunities on the internet and travelled to the US to meet the babies they had hoped to raise as their own.

It later emerged another couple in America had previously adopted the sisters, who were then snatched back by their birth mother, Tranda Wecker, 28, and sold on to the Kilshaws for £8,200.

The British couple signed the adoption papers in the US in December 2000 and later flew the twins to their home in Buckley. But news of the “cash for babies” deal caused uproar and the twins were taken into emergency protection in January 2001 before being returned to the US.