[Amy]

BIG BROTHER favourite Brian Belo grew up at the centre of a vicious feud that saw his birth parents repeatedly try to get him back from his loving foster mum.

Sue Wood, who began caring for Brian when he was just three months old, has told how he was left traumatised when his biological mum and dad tried to take him away.

"When Brian was about 11, I was at work and he phoned me up from home in Basildon. I didn't even recognise his voice because he was that frightened," said Sue.

"He said, ‘My Nigerian mum and dad are at the door trying to get in to get me.' I quickly got home and that's when the police arrived.

"We got an emergency line installed so that Brian could pick up the phone and the police would be there within minutes."

Sue revealed how the trouble began soon after she started caring for Brian—when an attempt was made to BUY him back.

A tribal leader, honoured in the Nigerian community with the courtesy title of grandad, contacted her to make an offer.

Baby

"He was a tribal elder," Sue said. "He made the decisions about trying to buy Brian from me. They wanted me to come to an address in Old Kent Road in London to do the deal.

"One day when Brian was a baby the ‘grandad' came over to my house and offered to buy him off me.

"I didn't even get to ask how much. I said to him, ‘No way. We don't do that sort of thing in England— sell babies'."

As he was growing up, Brian, now 20, had regular visits with his birth parents, who'd had him fostered because they couldn't cope financially.

But as he got older, they became increasingly determined to have him back full-time. Sue said: "We would share him for the six weeks of holidays. When he was 11, his mum called me and said, ‘Don't bother coming to get him because you're not going to see him any more'."

But Sue, 53, went to the house with her own sons Raymond, now 35, and Damian, 32, to get Brian back. "We had to get the police involved. It was horrendous. But they eventually gave him back to us," said Sue.

Battle

She has never told Brian the lengths to which she went to ensure he could stay with her.

When he leaves the Big Brother house he will find out Sue even MARRIED his biological dad Gbola. In 1989, when Brian was two, Gbola told her if she wanted to continue caring for the child she'd have to marry him so he could avoid deportation, claimed Sue.

"I was genuinely trying to help him stay in the country. If I didn't he was going to take Brian back to Nigeria," she said.

But she insisted it was all done for the love of Brian. "I was only doing the right thing by him. Everything I did during his childhood was the right thing by Brian."

She revealed how the custody battle that raged when he was a youngster took its toll. "Brian got very withdrawn," she said. "He had trouble trusting people. People had to go to great lengths to earn his trust."

And Sue claimed it was Brian's choice to cut contact with his Nigerian family. "He had a lot of contact with his dad up until he was about eight," she said. "After that he used to cry and scream every time he went over to their house.

"Initially he was going to spend every other weekend with them. But it got less and less."

When he was about 11, Brian's mum Nike started legal action to get him back.

Terrifed

Sue said: "He had to tell a court and social services that he wanted to stay with me. It has always been Brian's choice. He did find it very distressing and difficult. By then he'd grown up with me. He was happy where he was."

Sue won a residency order to care for Brian until he was 17. He severed links with Gbola and Nike, only making contact again when he turned 18.

Sue revealed that as well as coping with the feud between herself and his real parents, Brian went through hell at the hands of racist bullies. She explained: "He has been called out and bullied for being black on many occasions.

"One time, when a boy kept on at him for weeks, he did slap him. Then the boy left him alone. He's not usually violent at all. Brian is very, very laid back."

But one incident left him absolutely terrified. "One day three white boys pulled up in a car and were giving him abuse. He was very shaky. He phoned me up to come and get him. He was on his own and devastated," said Sue.

Before the taunts began taking their toll, Brian was like a pre-school Robbie Williams, said Sue.

She said: "He was such a happy-go-lucky boy before he realised what went on. He always liked to entertain us."

Article News Of The World

[Ruth*Star]

That must of been hard for him to grow up in.