AN Australian who has lived in Wiltshire for the past 32 years will fly back to the UK on Saturday, October 6 having fulfilled her mother’s dying wish.

Veronica Shaw, 59, from Trowbridge, is to fly out to Perth in Australia tomorrow to attend her child migrant mother's funeral and bring her ashes back home to the UK.

Her mum, Hannah O’Rourke, who died aged 79 on September 14, was one of the UK’s 4,000 child migrants - many already in social care - who were despatched in the 1940s and 50s to former Commonwealth countries.

They were sent to Australia and Zimbabwe as part of a government-backed resettlement scheme managed by charities and the church.

More than 100 Britons who were sent abroad as children under the scheme are to sue the UK government over the abuse they suffered.

In March this year, an inquiry said 2,000 survivors should receive financial compensation within 12 months.

But Mrs Shaw said: "I am not sure why the government is not dealing with this report, 15 child migrants have died since the report was published.

“My mum was a child migrant, sent to Australia. It was mum’s dying wish to return home. On October 6 and carrying out my mother’s last wishes to return to the UK I will be returning with her ashes.”

“I am determined to see that mum did not die in vain. She searched throughout her life for her parents. We were told the certificates for them had been destroyed.”

Hannah O’ Rourke was sent to the Sisters of Mercy orphanage in Perth and lived there until she was 18 years old.

Mrs Shaw claims that, while in the orphanage, her mother was physically and verbally abused by the nuns, forced to work long hours and received only a limited education.

After leaving, she ended up falling pregnant by her husband, Robert Miller, but later married him and bore him four children, the eldest of whom, Karen, died aged only two.

Veronica also has a sister Colleen Mackenzie, 58. Her only brother, Glen Miller, died aged 53 six weeks ago.

Mrs Shaw said her mother struggled with post-natal depression after her brother was born. She was also abused by her husband, who was an alcoholic and physically violent towards her.

She never knew who her parents were or where she came from, although she searched desperately for them throughout her life.

“My hope is that I can trace my mum’s parents grave and let her rest in peace with her ashes scattered with them.”

Mrs Shaw is also seeking justice for all those child migrants who were sent abroad and who, like her mother, are only returning to the UK after their death.

Mrs Shaw added: “My mother suffered from a sense of loss, distrust, lack of identity, emotional wellbeing and lack of confidence, all of had a major impact on her adult life.

“We believe it is our right to demand and expect the Government to set up a committee to implement the findings from the inquest announced in March.”

“We have lived through the aftermath over the past decades as a direct result of the decision the British Government made in using children as a commodity to be bargained between countries and changing the destiny of these children and their descendants.

“It’s too late now for mum, and the government may be waiting for the child migrants to die off, but I can promise there will be the next generation coming through to raise their voices for justice, for their parents, these ‘lost children of the Empire’.”