A county councillor who was told her “baby will be better” without her off is urging the government to apologise for historic forced adoptions.

Cllr Karen Constantine, deputy leader of the Labour group at Kent County Council (KCC), called the fact that women were coerced into giving away their babies "the biggest scandal in the country".

During the 1950s, 60s and 70s around 185,000 pregnant women in England and Wales were taken to hostels told to give away their children.

The government has said it’s sorry on “behalf of society for what happened” but has not issued an official apology.

Cllr Constantine is now writing a book about the women who were victims of forced adoptions.

At the age of 15 she fell pregnant in 1978 and was taken to a mother and baby home where she was told “your baby will be better off”, have a better life and be “properly” looked after, she recalled on BBC Politics South East.

It was only her "enduring stubborn streak" that meant her child was not taken from her, she added.

Other women who were coerced into giving their babies away will take “the burden of shame to their grave", she said.

The Ramsgate councillor said a government apology would "set the record straight.”

The Welsh, Scottish and Irish governments have all apologised for forced adoptions, but the UK is yet to.

This is despite a Joint Committee on Human Rights finding in 2022 that as well as “the failure to acknowledge the reality of what was done to these mothers and their children, there continues to be a lack of adequate support” from the UK government, which “bears responsibility for what happened to these mothers”.

A government statement said: "We agree with the committee’s findings that the treatment during this period of many unmarried parents, especially women, was wrong and should not have happened.

"We are sorry to all those affected by historic adoption practices. We are sorry on behalf of society for what happened.

"Whilst we cannot undo the past, lessons of the time have been learned and have led to significant changes to legislation and practice."