Saturday 21 March 2015

Lecturer wins £40k damages after 'wife deceives him into thinking IVF child is his'

A lecturer who says his businesswoman wife deceived him
into thinking that he was the father of the son she gave birth
to following fertility treatment has won a damages fight.
The man had claimed that without his knowledge the child
was created with the use of sperm provided by a former
boyfriend -

and was on Friday awarded about £40,000 by a
judge.
He said she dropped the "" when the child, now
nine, was five. The woman, now divorced from the man,
said there was "no merit" in the damages claim.
She said she always thought that the man knew that he was
"not necessarily" the little boy's father.
Judge Deborah Taylor analysed the case at a hearing at the
Central London County Court earlier this week and ruled on
Friday morning. She was told that the case is thought to be
the first of its kind.
• First babies born from safe new IVF technique
• House of Lords approves three-parent babies law
The judge said nothing could be published which would
reveal the identity of the boy at the centre of proceedings.
She said the man and woman should be referred to as "X"
and "Y".
The judge was told that the man was in his 60s, the woman
was in her 50s. The man and woman lived in different parts
of the London area. The man also had family links to Bolton,
Lancashire.
Judge Taylor heard that the couple married in 2002. In 2004
they had travelled to a clinic in Barcelona, Spain, for IVF
treatment and the man had given a sample of his sperm.
A few months later the woman returned to the clinic without
the man and travelled instead with a former boyfriend.
Barrister Thomas Brudenell, who represented the man, said
during the later visit the woman was impregnated with her
former boyfriend's sperm.
The little boy was born in late 2005 and when he was
around six months old the couple separated. Divorce
proceedings began and their divorce was finalised in 2008.
Mr Brudenell said the man looked after the child when the
woman was working and paid more than £80,000 in
maintenance over the following few years.
The woman claimed she always thought her husband knew
he was 'not necessarily' the boy's father
In 2011 a dispute arose over the amount of contact he was
having with the youngster - and the woman then told him
that he was not the "biological father". Shortly afterwards
that was confirmed when he took a DNA test.
The woman told the judge that she had never told the man
he was the father and said she had hidden nothing.
She told the judge that her ex-husband knew "from the very
first day" that she had been to the clinic with her ex-
boyfriend.
The woman said there had been no deceit, no fraud and no
misrepresentation - and said she was "not guilty".
Mr Brudenell told the court that the man wanted damages
for "distress and humiliation", damages to cover the amount
he had paid in maintenance, and compensation for loss of
earnings. He said the man's work had suffered and his
income dropped because he was "shattered".

• Single women should not get free IVF, say ethics experts
• NHS trusts told to end postcode lottery of IVF treatment

Judge Taylor has heard that the couple's marriage was in
difficulty around the time the woman had IVF treatment.
Mr Brudenell told her that they had drawn up an agreement
under which he would not have the "normal" financial
responsibility for any child.
He said it seemed that the agreement had "upset" the
woman.
The woman had asked whether any "normal, loving, caring,
husband" would have "forced his wife" to sign an
agreement such as the one she signed.
"He didn't want to go back (to the Spanish clinic)," she
said. "The only reason I took (my ex-boyfriend) was
because my ex-husband gave me that document to sign."

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