David Batty on Muck Rack

David Batty

Verified
London
As seen in: The Guardian, MSN Canada, MSN Singapore, Yahoo Entertainment, MSN Australia, MSN UK, Yahoo Canada, Yahoo News UK, Yahoo Singapore, Yahoo Finance Canada, Yahoo Finance Singapore and
Senior reporter for @guardian; visiting lecturer at @cityjournalism; freelance editorial trainer.
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Articles

My mother was forced to give me up for adoption. But when we finally met decades later, it was far from a fairytale ending

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By David Batty 
| Inkl
David Batty: ‘Much remains unresolved.’ Photograph: Lydia Goldblatt/The Guardian One morning in late September 2023, I discovered by chance that my birth mother had been killed almost a year earlier. The revelation came while I was searching my work email for a stray message. In the bin folder, amid a slurry of irrelevant press releases, lay an unopened email, flagging a long-forgotten Google alert I had set up for her name, Susan Barras.
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My mother was forced to give me up for adoption. But when we finally met decades later, it was far from a fairytale ending

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By David Batty 
| Yahoo Canada
David Batty Sat, June 6, 2026 at 5:00 a.m. UTC 23 min read Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. David Batty: 'Much remains unresolved.'Photograph: Lydia Goldblatt/The Guardian One morning in late September 2023, I discovered by chance that my birth mother had been killed almost a year earlier. The revelation came while I was searching my work email for a stray message.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

My mother was forced to give me up for adoption. But when we finally met decades later, it was far from a fairytale ending

|
By David Batty 
| Yahoo News UK
One morning in late September 2023, I discovered by chance that my birth mother had been killed almost a year earlier. The revelation came while I was searching my work email for a stray message. In the bin folder, amid a slurry of irrelevant press releases, lay an unopened email, flagging a long-forgotten Google alert I had set up for her name, Susan Barras. We had been estranged for almost 15 years, so this in itself provoked trepidation.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?
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