The reality of adopted children discovering they were born from rape has been shared in a new documentary partly filmed in Bradford district.

Neil, who grew up in Ilkley, is among a group of adopted children who told their story for the BBC’s Out of the Shadows: Born from Rape.

The 27-year-old, who uses they/them pronouns, had always wanted to learn more about their birth mother.

After hiring a private detective to discover their family’s secrets, only a letter stood between Neil’s past and their future.

Those words would turn Neil’s world upside down after discovering their dreams of a happy reunion were tangled with complexity.

Neil’s mother was raped by a stranger in a park when she was a teenager and Neil was born as a result.

Describing those emotions, Neil said: “Do I look like the man who raped my birth mother?

“You feel grief, you feel anger, you feel shame.

“You’re putting yourself in your birth mother’s shoes. You’re also thinking, am I going to remind her of the person who did this to her?

“The worst feeling is feeling like you’re alone. You’re questioning everything about yourself. Do I look like a rapist?

“You grow up with all these ideas of who you are. You’re kind, nice, loving, and then you find out you were conceived in a really violent, almost hateful way.”

They added: “When you hear those words it’s like somebody’s, almost like a video game, punched into your chest and ripped your insides out. I just broke down, completely and utterly lost it.”

Neil took the plunge and met their birth mother for the first time aged 27.

They said: “One of the first things I said to her was if I look like the man who did this to you, walk away, I don’t want to bring that back. She said, it’s fine you don’t look like him. That really changed things for me.

“I don’t think of myself as having a birth father. I have my birth mother and that’s it. And that’s enough.

“My relationship with my birth mother, we’ve started talking again. It’s lovely and I hope there’s love there.”

Out of the Shadows: Born from Rape, presented by Sammy Woodhouse, is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.