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Shanghai’d - BBC North West’s Close Up North, 7.30pm, Thursday 31 January

The disturbing story of how thousands of Chinese wartime seamen were forcibly repatriated from their North West "homes" is revealed in a BBC North West TV documentary.

The programme Shanghai’d tells how one man exposed the shocking truth whilst trying to track down the reason for his father’s "disappearance" after the Second World War.

Keith Cocklin’s father was one of two thousand Chinese who served in British ships to support the war effort, only to be shipped out themselves in 1945.

Keith initially believed the seamen, regarded as some of the best in the business, had returned voluntarily to China to support the new People’s Republic.

But when he found they were shipped out four years before the new Republic was founded, he began his investigation... and discovered the awful truth.

In two night raids in Liverpool’s Chinatown area, thousands of Chinese - some married to English women - were rounded up and compulsorily repatriated.

The programme talks to a witness of the raids Larry Kee and to Steve Chapman, who saw bunks being fitted in cargo holds on the vessel Sarpedon ready for the Chinese to be brought down.

Liverpool businessman Brian Wong admits that there were "gambling dens and some prostitution" in the Liverpool area where the Chinese community lived.

But Keith also discovers that the Chinese, who worked for the Blue Funnel line, were asking for wages equivalent to British seamen after the war. He suggests that may have had some bearing on the decision.

Whatever the reasons, he says bitterly: "The Blue Funnel doted on their Chinese seamen because of their reputation," adding that when they were suddenly shipped out, "they were treated no better than slaves."

Keith, who still lives in Liverpool, says: "I cannot believe the British Government would treat the Chinese seamen like they did."

In his research, Keith finds a Home Office report from 1945 which claims: "In the last three years, there have been one thousand convictions for opium smoking among the Chinese (in Liverpool)... over half were suffering from VD or TB.

"The Liverpool authorities were keen to secure the use of the accommodation which the Chinese occupied... and 117 of them have British-born wives, many of whom were of the prostitute class."

Keith is infuriated by the last comment, his mother being an English woman.

Professor Tony Lane of Cardiff University, who helped design the Maritime Museum exhibition in Liverpool, says the repatriation revelation came as "a big surprise," pointing out that British historians have not been very much interested in the history of small ethnic groups like the Chinese.

He says the Chinese community had no media to channel their feelings through and that becoming involved in politics "is not part of the Chinese nature."

Keith still believes his father may be alive in mainland China, claiming that "a sixth sense" tells him that is the case.