TV chef Lorraine Pascale was placed in emergency care after her mother tried to strangle her

TV chef Lorraine Pascale’s adoptive mother tried to strangle and suffocate her when she was a little girl - and thought of hurling her under the wheels of a lorry.

The star has discovered she was placed on the at-risk register aged three because her adoptive mother told social workers she feared she might kill her. 

Adopted by a white family at 18 months, the former model never knew why she was subsequently separated from her adoptive mother at the age of eight and placed into emergency foster care.

But the presenter, 41, has learned how a desperate Audrey Woodward, reeling from a broken marriage, warned Oxfordshire social services the little girl’s life was in danger.

A horrified Pascale uncovered details of the abuse while making a BBC documentary on fostering.

The star, who says she cannot recall the incidents, said: ‘To learn I was on the at-risk register from 1976 was enlightening, daunting and sad.’

In the documentary, Pascale is left sickened by files detailing conversations between her adoptive mother and officials. She is lost for the words when she comes across a passage in which Woodward, who had a son of her own, told officials she had considered throwing Lorraine under a lorry.

The first memo, dated 1976 and referring to Pascale as a child at risk, states: ‘Mother is worried about the pressure building up and feels like she is about to take it out on adopted daughter. She said she had exploded and smacked the children very hard but knew she was particularly heavy handed with Lorraine.

Dailym