A man who mixed his sperm with his father’s to help get his partner pregnant will not be forced to take a paternity test, the high court has ruled.
The man, identified as PQ as he cannot be named for legal reasons, and his partner (JK) had experienced fertility problems and were not able to afford IVF treatment, the court heard at a hearing last month.
As a result he agreed to mix his sperm with his father’s (RS), which was then injected into the woman. The arrangement, which Justice Poole was informed had been “always intended” to be kept secret, led to the birth of a now five-year-old boy (D).
But once Barnsley council became aware of the circumstances of the boy’s conception as a result of separate proceeding, it launched a legal bid to determine his parentage.
The authority called upon the high court in Sheffield to direct that DNA tests should be carried out to determine whether the man was D’s father.
However, in a judgment handed down on Thursday, Poole dismissed the bid, saying that he found the council had “no stake in the outcome”.
He told the court: “It may wish to know who is D’s biological father, but it has no stake in the outcome of its application.
“A wish to uphold the public interest in maintaining accurate records of births does not confer a personal interest in the determination of such an application.”
The judge concluded that the family may wish to undergo a paternity test to tell the child at a later date “but that is a matter for them”.
Throughout the case, the judge said that the family had “created a welfare minefield”, adding: “I cannot believe that JK, PQ and RS properly thought through the ramifications of their scheme for JK to become pregnant, otherwise it is unlikely that they would have embarked upon it.”
He continued that the boy “is a unique child who would not exist but for the unusual arrangements made for his conception, but those arrangements have also created the potential for him to suffer emotional harm were he to learn of them”.
Poole said the man had an established father-and-son relationship with the child and it was up to him and the boy’s mother to “manage the latent risks to his welfare”.
He added: “It must be acknowledged that the circumstances of D’s conception cannot now be undone.
“Without testing, his biological paternity remains uncertain but there is a strong chance, to say the least, that the person he thinks is his grandfather is his biological father, and that the person he thinks is his father is his biological half-brother.”
PA Media contributed to this report.
