Davina McCall helps reunite bus driver with long-lost daughter after 50 years

In scenes from ITV's Long Lost Family that aired tonight, Davina McCall broke emotional news to Justus Augustin, a 68-year-old retired bus driver, that the daughter he was unable to adopt decades ago had been found and was living just four miles from him in southeast London.

Authorities told Justus that he could not adopt his infant daughter as a single man, a decision that ripped apart his first family and shaped the course of the next 50 years. The episode portrays how Justus, who later had five more children, preserved hope even as the circumstances around his first child, Joanne, remained unresolved and the family life he longed for seemed out of reach.

The daughter, now known as Jane, is depicted as someone who always knew her father had tried to keep her. McCall presents Justus with the news and shows him a photograph of Jane, prompting an emotional response in which he declares, "Look at Jane! Oh my God, she does look like me," and vows, "That’s my daughter. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m not going to leave you, I’m going to be your shadow." The program emphasizes the moment of reconnection and the relief that Jane is willing to meet him after so many years apart.

Justus's life story is set against the arc of Windrush-era migration. He arrived in London from St Lucia as an eight-year-old boy in the 1960s to join his mother, who was part of the Windrush generation. He initially struggled to fit in, and his later relationship with an Irish girl—who became the mother of Joanne—were complicated by stigma and disapproval that overshadowed the young couple.

When the teenage couple learned they were expecting, they attempted to conceal the pregnancy. The girl’s father did not approve of the relationship, and the baby was put up for adoption. Additional barriers arose when Justus’s mother sought to adopt but was deemed too old, and the adoption process for Joanne was ultimately blocked by authorities who were wary of a Black man becoming a single adoptive parent.

The episode underscores how generations of policy and prejudice intersected with personal longing. Jane’s knowledge that Justus had tried to keep her adds a layer of context to the emotional reunion, illustrating how families can remain connected by memories even when formal bonds were never possible.

Viewers can watch the emotional reunion on ITV1 at 9 p.m. local time.