A foster mother has had a baby with a refugee from Eastern Europe whom she started fostering when he was 14.
Julia Gregg, 34, and her husband, Steve Crandon, 38, gave a home to Kosovan Krenar Lleshi after he arrived in South Wales in the back of a lorry in 1999. However the Ebbw Vale couple later divorced and Ms Gregg and Mr Lleshi, 21, fell in love. Ms Gregg said they plan to marry.
She said: "I know people have gossiped about us but we are very proud parents."
Mr Lleshi was smuggled in to Britain when he was only 14. He was taken into local authority care and fostered by Ms Gregg who was then 27, and Mr Crandon.
He was listed as an illegal immigrant and his foster parents fought to keep him in Britain describing him as a "model citizen". He was given "exceptional leave" to stay by the Home Office because all his family had also fled Kosovo and he continued to live with Ms Gregg and Mr Crandon as a foster child.
The couple had fostered more than 20 teenagers at their home at Ebbw Vale, south Wales. Ms Gregg said she split with Mr Crandon when their marriage failed, and Mr Lleshi, then aged 19, moved in with his foster father. Later he returned to her, and that was when the pair of them fell in love.
She said: "It might not have been the most conventional start to a relationship but we are just like any other family with the same hopes and dreams for our daughter, Hattie."
She added: "There is nothing better for us than our daughter - she's our gift from God. We are no different from any other couple or any other family."
Mr Crandon, who lives three miles away, declined to comment.
January 2007
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