A BRIERLEY Hill builder has been united with the daughter he never knew he had after a search resembling the plot of hit musical Mamma Mia revealed surprise family ties.
Steve Phillips, aged 47, already had a daughter and a son with wife Tracie, so it came as a bolt out of the blue when he received a shock phone call from a young woman in Kent saying she believed he could be her dad.
Fallan Kelly, a 25-year-old office manager based in Langley, started her search for her biological father, which turned into an echo of the plot of Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan movie Mamma Mia, after her boyfriend encouraged her to turn to the internet for clues.
She soon discovered her dad could be one of three men her mother had known back in the 80s - and she set about contacting them and asking them if they’d be willing to undergo a DNA test.
The first suitor she tracked down via 192.com was quickly ruled out.
Steve, a former boxer, was the second person on her list - but as soon as he and Fallan met at Toddington Services in Bedfordshire for a DNA test it was a case of ‘knowing me, knowing you’.
The Black Country dad said it was immediately obvious they were related.
He said: “I could see the resemblance straight away; she looks just like my other daughter - it’s spooky really.”
However - the nervous hubby, who had already told his wife the possible news, decided to sit tight until the results came back.
Shortly afterwards, on his 47th birthday, he got more than the many happy returns of the day he was expecting when Fallan called him up and said: “Hello dad.”
Shocked Steve said: “I was on scaffolding in Dudley at the time - I nearly fell off.
“Someone said it’s like something out of Mamma Mia - and I watched it for the first time the other week and thought it does sound a bit similar.”
Steve then had to confess all to his kids, Leanne aged 20 and Ryan aged 17. But the family, including wife Tracie who Steve met just a few months after his relationship with Fallan’s mom Debbie, have taken it all in their stride.
And newly-united father and daughter have been getting on like a house on fire.
Fallan, who had longed all her life to find her father, said: “I’m so happy with it all now.”
192.com PR executive Alexander Clare said Fallan's happy ending is one of many success stories for the leading people-finding website, which helps users to trace family and friends through records such as directory enquiries, electoral roll information, business records etc.
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