Charlotte Church's mum says singer's biological dad wanted her to have abortion

Charlotte Church's mother, Maria, has opened up about the treatment she was subjected to at the hands of the singer's biological father, in the latest episode of new podcast, Kicking Back with the Cardiffians. Maria, who now runs a dog hotel and has been happily married to husband, and Charlotte's adoptive father, James for more than three decades, sheds some light on the heartbreaking start of the musician's life and how her ex took her and the-then baby Charlotte to social services and threatened to give her up unless they were given their own place to live.

In the BBC Sounds series, which Charlotte has already warned would contain frank and open discussions with family and friends about being vulnerable, the mother and daughter open up about the man who Maria entered a relationship with when she was 19, fell pregnant with Charlotte by 20 and that the "whirlwind romance" turned sour very quickly. Maria said that she suffered mental abuse before it turned to physical and she was isolated from her family with a young baby and living on the breadline.

"Every time throughout my childhood, or when he was mentioned or he came into our lives again, the fear that it would create in you, just like a panic response," Charlotte recalled. Maria then said: "There'd be times when I'd be driving along and I thought I'd see him and would think 'f*cking hell,' and froze. I couldn't drive the car. He was just vile, what he put me through."

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Charlotte continued: "So, he's moved you out of home, told your parents 'she's not living here anymore' moved you into, somewhere you thought was going to be a nice flat.." "A hovel," adds Maria saying she recalls it as just "having a mattress on the floor".

"You fall pregnant really quickly," said Charlotte, "and you're with a very unstable, abusive man. And he wanted you to have an abortion. Did he?" Maria answers: "Yeah, he said 'we're not keeping it,' but I don't remember talking about it because there was no way on earth... I was always going to have you. And I don't think he was too happy with that."

During labour Maria had an asthma attack which caused baby Charlotte to struggle with breathing and she was then born by emergency caesarean. Returning home to her parents house, Maria, Charlotte and her biological father took a trip into town three weeks after the birth, Maria explained, for a "shopping trip".

She added: "He dragged me into town middle of March it would have been I remember it raining, and he dragged me straight into social services. I said 'what the f*ck are we doing in here?' And we went in to see this woman with you in his arms and holding my arm behind my back and told me 'you just say nothing'."

Maria explains that social services were told "we just can't look after her any more". Charlotte was handed over to the social worker and Maria's ex said they needed somewhere to live or they'd have to give up the baby. They went to a hostel before moving to Pentwyn, the opposite side of Cardiff to where Maria lived with her parents and to her it felt like "the other side of the world".

"It was horrendous," she added. "I had nothing to eat. I think when you were three months old I was five stone 10. I probably had a slice of bread a day."

Maria went on to say she was just on "autopilot" for around 12 months, "I got through it because of you, simply because of you. You were so beautiful, you were a starver (constantly feeding) and we just had that bond. And you kept me going."

Her parents, "who were amazing" helped remove Maria and Charlotte from the situation and the pair moved back over to Canton when the singer was around 16 months. Maria went on to speak in the episode about trying to find employment and learning to drive with a small baby in tow and also how she got together with James, who adopted Charlotte when she was three.

"[James] was very outgoing, could hold a room, we laughed, we still do," said Maria as Charlotte calls their romance a "love story that's traversed such ground," and is "one of the greatest of all time".

"But such a story of resistance and sticking together, I do, now that I'm older, have such an unbelievable respect for you two as a pair, as a couple. You're excellent talking about the story," Charlotte told her mother.

Listen to Charlotte and Maria's full chat, and more episodes of Kicking Back with the Cardiffians, on BBC Sounds.

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