Well done to Featureworld interviewee Dr Alex Shergold on having her book Chronicles of Michael Part one published.
In 2008 Alex emailed me through the Sell My Story contact form of my Featureworld website. Her husband Michael had been contacted by social services telling him he was the dad of a son he never knew he had. Andrew, five, was born after Michael had split with a previous girlfriend and Michael had no idea he even existed. More bizarre Social Services wanted him to agree to Andrew, whose mum could no longer care for him, being adopted.
As you can imagine, this was a bombshell for Alex and Michael – but in fact Alex stood by him. More than this, they both felt if Michael had a son, they did not want him to be adopted by stranger and he should live with them. However, when they went to social services, they discovered he was already living with the family that wanted him. And social services didn’t even want to consider that Michael and Alex could have him instead (despite the fact they both had other children themselves.) As Alex and Michael looked into this more, they then discovered what they believed was the real reason why social services rang Michael. Andrew had a medical problem that meant unless he had a transplant from a blood relative, he would not live beyond his teenage years.
They wanted Michael to agree to give Andrew this transplant – but bizarrely even if he agreed, Michael would never be allowed to see Andrew. Incredibly, if the transplant worked, Andrew would also never be told it was from his father.
At the time social services placed an injunction on this story to stop it being told. But after a legal battle, this was lifted and I wrote this story for the Mail on Sunday newspaper. You can click on the book cover to read it.
Today Michael is still fighting to see Andrew – and now Alex has written a book about their battle for Michael’s son. It is available from Amazon here.
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