Anyone else listening to the Observer podcast Foundling and wanting to discuss?

[DorsetCafes]

Not telly but I don’t know which category it belongs to!

This is about an Observer investigative podcast called Foundling - I am desperate to discuss it with someone!! Has anyone else listened to it yet?

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/foundling-tortoise-investigates/id1590561275?i=1000755703771

I was wondering about that, too.

If I recall correctly he was a married 25 year old father of 2 when he impregnated Jess' birth mother, the teenager.

A fertile man having unprotected sex didn't think pregnancy might occur??? Erm...

I also find it very hard to believe that word of her being on the news with a baby (that he'd know was 9 months later) didn't make its way back to him. They ran in the same circles enough to have sex multiple times - Surely her parents, her friends, any of his friends who knew her friends - Everyone who knew of her would be talking about that crazy story?

You might enjoy the BBC sounds podcast series “ The Gift” which explores the consequences of DNA testing for some families.

I wondered about this too.

However, are we just so used to the 24-hour news cycle now that we forget things might have been different then?

I moved here in 1994 and I seem to remember that the TV stations went 'off' still at a certain point in the evening. I remember when Channel Five started.

If you missed the nightly news for a few nights (possible) and also managed to pick up the sort of paper that happened to have a different story blaring across the front page - maybe you could have missed it? Also, weren't things more regionalised then?

I think the more fundamental point may be if you are a married man with two kids having an affair - you're pretty darn good at compartmentalising anyway.

They could have stayed in touch.

The other point I found bizarre was - isn't it established she didn't 'really' leave the baby by the verge? She just said she did. Anyone else wondering the same thing?

Yes I wondered that about the verge. So many odd bits. Did she drive there at all? How did she call the police?

Also the fact she did it again?? Why hasn’t this been covered further.

Lewis sounds like he’s in denial.

The way the story is introduced on the podcast makes the whodunnit aspect sound more mysterious than it is. It becomes obvious that everyone in the village knew who was involved, and probably the father and families knew more than they let on as well. It’s really a story about revenge, I think. What a spectacular way to get back at someone you are angry with. Which means the more interesting questions about how it happened and why it happened twice will never be answered.

I just finished listening to this today after subscribing so I could binge it all.

It seemed almost like Jess was trying to ‘Wendy’ (to use a MN term) her birth mother by infiltrating the family but refusing to have contact with her BM.

Having said that I thought the BM’s behaviour was abhorrent. By all accounts she enjoyed and almost revelled in the media attention when she ‘found’ the baby, she then went on to dump another baby 14 months later, and I can’t believe she hasn’t been sacked from her work for gross misconduct, I found that part extremely disturbing. Also BM replying to Jess’ Facebook message, to deny having anything to do with it, when she could have simply ignored the message. Again like she was revelling in tinkering around in Jess’ head. So I think I can understand why Jess doesn’t want to speak to her. The Facebook message was the chance to come clean, or at least ask to meet up to talk in person. She just lied again and I don’t think Jess will ever get any truth from her BM. I think the BM is a deeply disturbed and malevolent individual.

I also don’t believe for a minute that Lewis knew nothing about Jess. He basically admitted keeping in touch with the BM over the years, and knew exactly who she was when she got involved with his other daughter. It wasn’t clear to me whether he is now separated from the mother of all of his other children, if I were Chloe’s mum I would never forgive him for being in part, in my opinion, directly responsible for what happened.