Baby plot mum facing jail over ‘inhumane’ con

She told father child was aborted

A MOTHER is facing jail after telling the father of her baby she had an abortion so that she could sell the child to a gay friend for £300.

The 29-year- old woman and her friend were both found guilty yesterday of hatching the plot to deny the natural father his rights as a parent by pretending his baby girl was never born.

As a result of the ‘inhumane’ deception, the real f ather missed out on the first three years of his daughter’s life.

At Perth Sheriff Court a jury unanimously found the mother and her friend guilty of the fraudulent scheme and both were warned to expect jail.

The court had heard the woman had become pregnant when she and the father were involved in a three- month relationship.

After it ended, she told him she had had a termination. Giving evidence, he told the jury he ‘ mourned’ the loss of his unborn child.

In fact she had kept the baby and sold her to the friend who claimed he was the natural father.

The fraud faltered when the striking resemblance between the real father and his daughter began to be noticed.

But the court heard police initially refused to investigate the crime.

It was only after the father lodged a formal complaint that they looked into it.

At the conclusion of the case, Sheriff William Wood told him: ‘I can’t fail to be impressed by the vigour and stamina that has been required of you to get matters this far; the complaints you’ve made and the letters you have had to write to get people to take this seriously as a criminal complaint.’

The father, who cannot be named, clenched his fist and mouthed ‘thank you’ to members of the jury.

Now married and bringing his daughter up along with his young son, the father said that he was ‘over the moon’ with the verdicts.

During the six-day trial, the woman claimed that she and her gay friend had had sex and she had thought that he was the natural father.

But the jury also learned of the story the pair concocted to explain the arrival of the baby and prevent the real father from claiming her.

The court heard that they came up with a fictitious character called Clare Green who was said to have had given birth to the child after inseminating herself with the gay man’s sperm.

The two even created a fake Facebook account for the character and told people that Miss Green was a lesbian lawyer. Yet both the child’s real mother and her gay friend had signed the birth certificate, claiming to be the natural parents.

DNA tests later showed the woman’s former boyfriend was the real father.

He told the court: ‘I was gutted to start off with. I questioned her a couple of weeks after and she informed she did terminate the child.

‘I was sad and mourned for a while because I thought the child was dead.’

He added: ‘I have missed everything for the first three years. I’ve missed the most important time in any child’s life for bonding and will never be able to get that again.’

He said he had been excited when he learned his then girlfriend was pregnant.

‘I love having children. She got more and more reluctant about having the child near the end of our relationship,’ he said. ‘She split up with me and told me she was going to have an abortion.’

The mother, from Perth, and her friend were found to have formed a fraudulent scheme to deny the child’s father his parental rights for almost three years.

The convicted duo had bail continued and sentence was deferred until next month for background reports.

Outside court, the child’s father said: ‘I am over the moon. I have finally got justice for my little girl.

‘I don’t think any sentence is high enough to justify what they have done to her.

‘It’s going to take years and years of battle to try and make my daughter understand

‘That’s the biggest part of it that hasn’t really been in the case – the emotional trauma for my little girl.

‘I am just going to celebrate now with my family.’

He added: ‘Today was emotional because it means we can start to move on.

The father said that it ‘means that we finally have some justice. And it means that we can move on.’

‘Mourned loss

of his child’ ‘Finally got justice for my little girl’