Flora Keays wants to meet 'Daddy'

Lord Parkinson returned to his wife after the affair

Flora Keays - the illegitimate daughter of Conservative grandee Lord Parkinson - has revealed on television how she wants to meet her father.

Her life story has finally been told on screen after a court gagging order expired because Flora has now turned 18.

I would like to meet my Daddy... because I haven't been given the chance to see him yet

Flora Keays

Flora, the product of a 12-year affair between the former Tory Party chairman and his House of Commons secretary Sara Keays, spoke about her feelings for the father she has never met.

Speaking on the Channel 4 documentary, she said: "I would like to meet my Daddy... because I haven't been given the chance to see him yet.

"If he was part of our lives I'd be seeing him all the time, every day."

The film showed Sara Keays telling her daughter her father has never seen her because "he didn't want anything to do with us."

Speaking ahead of the film, Sara Keays angrily denied that she fell pregnant to trap her lover and attacked Downing Street and Conservative Central Office for conducting a "very powerful and all pervasive disinformation campaign" to discredit her at the time.

Lord Parkinson - believed to be Margaret Thatcher's favourite minister - insisted that the orders were there to protect his daughter, but they were so far-reaching that she was not even allowed to appear in school photographs.

Sara Keays leaves hospital with baby Flora

But Sara told BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour: "What the judge effectively did was to say: 'it's okay for everybody to know about all the lies that have been uttered about her mother and raking over the past and talk about her father, but nobody can know about Flora."

Born with many of the characteristics of Asperger's syndrome, a rare type of autism, Flora has struggled with learning difficulties throughout her life.

She has suffered years of epilepsy and had an operation at the age of four to remove the whole right frontal lobe of her brain.

The film showed how she and her mother battled against her learning difficulties and follows her progress as she travels the world looking for an institute able to help her cope with the effects of the syndrome.

Bullied

Sara, who was forced to educate her daughter at home and encouraged her in ballet, gymnastics, horse riding and trampolining, said Lord Parkinson's reappointment by William Hague as Tory party chairman caused the youngster problems when she finally secured a place at a secondary school.

"It was torture for her. She was bullied, just because somebody thought it was necessary for him to have his job back, basically," she said.

But Sara is more defensive about her relationship with the former Trade and Industry Secretary and says her involvement in the documentary was for Flora.

"Really, I'm not interested in answering any more questions about him or me. It's about Flora. It's about her rights."

Married man

Asked about whether she tried to trap Lord Parkinson by announcing her pregnancy, she snaps: "Of course I didn't.

"Anyway, I'm not going to talk about that. It's irrelevant to the question of why the injunctions were imposed and the damage that they did to my daughter."

Sara stressed that her affair with a married man has nothing to do with Flora's rights.

Sara Keays says injunctions imposed on her have damaged her daughter

"He had a duty to his child and he had a duty to me, frankly, as the mother of this child and the rights and wrongs of the relationship are totally irrelevant to the questions about my daughter's democratic and human rights."

Sara's pregnancy resulted in Lord Parkinson's resignation from Baroness Thatcher's government. He returned to his wife Ann, mother of his three other daughters.

Sara said she received "virulent attacks" from women at the time.

"Downing Street and Conservative Central Officer were conducting a very powerful and all pervasive disinformation campaign to discredit me because the only way they felt they could shore up his career was by discrediting me," she said.

Lord Parkinson has stayed silent over the film.