They’re launched the a surrogate pioneers who service to ‘help’ desperate couples. Now read this disturbing investigation and see why Britain’s top fertility expert says they’re f louting the law The gay dads getting rich from RENT-A-WOMBS
BRITAIN’S first ‘gay dads’, Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow are not just charismatic advocates of same-sex marriage, but also of the often secretive world of surrogacy that allowed them to become parents.
Since they began building their family – five children by an assortment of egg donors and surrogate mothers, with triplet daughters planned soon – they have become the industry’s best known ambassadors.
The men are blessed with money, looks and a loving relationship. They have used all three to place themselves at the heart of Britain’s national debate about the legality and morality of this sensitive subject, the donation of eggs and the renting of a womb to create new life
Today, however, an undercover Mail on Sunday investigation reveals troubling questions about the methods and loopholes exploited by Barrie DrewittBarlow and his company the British Surrogacy Centre (BSC). We also highlight his abusive attitude to a vulnerable would-be mother and expose a lack of rigour in his company’s medical and legal vetting of a potential surrogate.
Our shock evidence has persuaded some industry experts, notably Baroness Warnock, architect of Britain’s fertility legislation, that the way BSC operates is illegal and should be investigated.
Her verdict will be a devastating blow to all the couples, gay and straight, who, inspired by the men’s success, look to the BSC for the baby they so desperately want.
Commercial surrogacy is illegal in this country. A surrogate mother can only be paid ‘reasonable expenses’ while anyone caught profiting from arranging surrogacy could face three months in prison. This ensures that bearing a child for another person remains an altruistic act.
But Britain’s 30-year-old legislation stands in contrast to other parts of the world, notably the US where the Drewitt-Barlows now live and where, despite its name, the BSC is headquartered. In America, surrogacy is big business, commanding fees of up to £150,000 per pregnancy and handsomely profiting industry fixers.
The BSC is causing concern because even its basic fee is extortionate compared to that of UKbased surrogate agencies, many of which are voluntary organisations. At around £8,000, it is approximately ten times the standard cost.
Posing as an infertile couple, Mail on Sunday reporters visited BSC’s UK offices on a drab Essex business park, trying to discover what services the company provides for this extraordinary sum.
They met with the company’s vice-president, Reece Statham, and asked if he could specifically match them with a UK surrogate. He confirmed: ‘Yes, the majority of our surrogacies now are done in the UK rather than the US.’
Later, he added: ‘We’re here from start to finish. From when you join all the way until you get your UK parental order.’
He admitted the BSC used a ‘cheeky’ ruse to advertise for surrogates in the UK despite this being illegal, by calling it the British Surrogacy Centre, even though it is a US company. He told our reporters: ‘It’s quite cheeky because you can’t advertise in the UK for surrogates.
‘They’ve called the company the British Surrogacy Centre of California because that’s where the company is registered. It’s got on there: “We’re looking for surrogates” – in a very small line – “in California.” So when a surrogate types in surrogacy we’re there!’
The BSC protects itself by saying: ‘If you are viewing the content of this site in a country where… commercial surrogacy is illegal then we advise you to leave the site or at the least be aware of the law.’
But this blurring of the lines between the altruism of the UK and the commercialism of the USA has enraged industry leaders. Baroness Warnock told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It seems pretty clear that they are breaking the law. I think their motive is to get around the law and they should be investigated by the authorities on that basis alone.
‘I would like to know the details of their financial profits and I think certainly the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority should investigate their activities. This is a plain case of exploitation.’
Campaigner Sarah Norcross, a member of Surrogacy UK’s working group for surrogacy law reform, agreed: ‘If BSC are operating in the UK it would raise very serious questions about whether they are acting within the letter of the law.’
Kim Cotton, a pioneering surrogate mother and head of the not-forprofit British surrogacy agency COTS, branded BSC’s fees ‘extortionate’ and accused the high-profile couple of ‘exploitation’.
But then the Drewitt-Barlows – both of whom are currently banned from being company directors in the UK after breaking insolvency laws – are no strangers to either controversy or the law courts.
They made history in 2000 when they became the first same-sex parents to have a child through surrogacy in Britain. Their evangelism for the process and obvious delight at becoming fathers made them trailblazers within the LGBT community and also for straight couples unable to have children naturally.
They have garnered headlines and magazine deals with each new baby and surprised no one when they left their home in Danbury, Essex, for a £2.1million mansion in Princeton, New Jersey, with 15 acres of gardens, swimming pool and boating lake. Now estimated to be worth £38million, a fortune built on medical testing companies, the couple lavish their four sons and one daughter with gifts – giving matching £110,000 Porsches to their oldest, twins Aspen and Saffron, on their 16th birthday.
There have even been rumours of a Keeping Up With The Kardashiansstyle
‘It’s quite cheeky what we are doing’
reality TV show, a deal which would be unharmed by their plans to have three more daughters using embryo sex selection, outlawed in Britain but legal in the US.
With Barrie’s high media profile and personal interest in surrogacy, it was hardly surprising when, in 2011, he founded the BSC. Its literature claims it has two UK centres and 15 full-time staff to guide couples through their complex choices.
They can either collect a would-be father’s semen and give it to a surrogate who inseminates herself. Or they can turn to IVF, using the father’s semen to fertilising an egg from the would-be mother, a donor, or the surrogate in a test tube. The resulting embryo is then transferred into a surrogate’s womb.
It’s the kind of profoundly emotional process which requires goldstandard treatment for all, whether they are couples living through the heartbreak of infertility or women who would like to help them.
Yet The Mail on Sunday has been shown emails and publicly-posted tweets from Barrie Drewitt-Barlow branding one client an ‘unfit parent’ with ‘mental health issues’.
We have also seen evidence that
another woman was accepted on to BSC’s books as a potential surrogate without full medical or legal checks.
The first case involved a woman who had suffered four miscarriages and seven failed IVF attempts during a decade-long quest to become a parent. Desperate to have children, but unable to afford BSC’s fees, Carole Davies – not her real name – agreed to take part in the couple’s reality TV series, The Parent Makers, which aired on Sky in 2014, for a reduction in her bill.
On the first day of filming, Barrie told her on camera she had been rejected for being ‘too needy’ by a surrogate with whom she had been matched. Distraught by this very public rejection, the hotel manager from Cambridgeshire immediately cut ties with BSC and pulled out of the filming.
The BSC boss then launched a series of attacks. He tweeted: ‘Wait till the episode with this unfit parents [sic] that the BSC did not accept airs’ and included her real name. When she challenged him, he responded with a series of cruel Twitter slurs. ‘We couldn’t work with you because we have a stringent criteria that u did not fit! #welfareofthechild!’
He added: ‘There is a reason you still do not have kids, that you have been ripped off…’ Finally he told her: ‘Ur not fit to parent, so I refuse to help you. You have a serious mental health issue that needs working on!’
Ms Davies said the attack prompted her to consider suicide, revealing: ‘I was so upset I didn’t leave the house for months and contemplated ending it all.’
In a different but equally troubling case a British-based woman who enquired about becoming a surrogate with BSC claimed she was signed up with no formal medical or police checks. The MoS has seen an email from BSC, passing on the woman’s details and photograph to prospective parents in December 2013 before a medical examination had been conducted. Yet the email stated: ‘We have just one more check to make on her which is a home visit.’
Recalling that visit, the woman said two young BSC employees conducted only a cursory conversation with ‘no personal questions, no nothing. There were also no police checks.’
The woman would not have been paid to be a surrogate, only compensated in line with UK law. BSC said she would have undergone medical checks at a later point had a surrogacy been agreed – but claimed she backed out before then.
Both cases raise further doubts about the credibility of the company which appears to have just two full-time and one part-time employee working out of its sole office in Essex, making it a much smaller concern than advertised.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow denies all allegations against BSC. He said: ‘Surrogacy in the UK is completely unlicensed with a huge explosion in women with no experience preying on vulnerable couples. BSC offers a safe alternative to both surrogates and intended parents and has helped hundreds to create their family. All monies paid to the BSC are for project management – that does not mean for arranging surrogacy but to provide information on where to go for help in the UK or overseas.’ They are noble words but are at odds with an on-screen outburst in
‘Surrogacy in the UK is completely unlicensed’
The Parent Makers where he fumed: ‘We have to give a good service to our clients. Without our clients… I don’t have my lifestyle. We don’t get paid.’
The Department of Health said: ‘Legislation is clear: no organisation in the UK should profit from surrogacy. Any evidence of wrongdoing or attempt to exploit vulnerable people must be taken extremely seriously and should be reported to the police.’