Father's adoption anniversary post seen by millions

Barney Thorne's posts about his son Adrian have been viewed by millions of people

A father has spoken of his pride after posts about how his adopted son became part of their family went viral online.

Barney Thorne, from near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, posted a series of messages on Twitter to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of meeting Adrian.

He was nine at the time with severe learning disabilities.

Mr Thorne said it had been an "amazing" decade and described his son as "brimming with love, life and happiness."

Mr Thorne and his wife Layanne first requested to meet Adrian, now 19, after watching an appeal to find him a weekend foster family on BBC East Midlands Today.

Adrian has global development delay and autism, and had been in local authority care for several years.

They spent months getting to know each other before he was allowed to move in with them.

A few years later, they adopted him.

Mr Thorne's posts, detailing the story of how they became parents to Adrian got a huge response.

Barney and Layanne Thorne adopted Adrian after years of getting to know each other

"I was really busy at work and just got straight into the car and drove home," he said.

"I could feel my phone constantly vibrating."

"It just kept on going with loads of comments about how it has emotionally touched people, how it's a beautiful story."

The posts have since been viewed by millions of people.

"This is Adrian's story, it wasn't about us," Mr Thorne said.

"It was about this kid that could have been lost, could have stayed in a residential home for his whole life and that didn't happen.

"He got to be in a family and we got to be a family because of him.

"We've made some amazing memories and he's touched so many lives, but mostly ours."