DESPAIR OF COUPLE IN SURROGATE BABY SCAM
Victims of ‘evil’ £8,000 con tell of heartache
A DEVASTATED couple have spoken for the first time about a cold-hearted surrogacy scam which cost them their chance to become parents.
Benita and Mark Cutter were overjoyed when Samantha Brown offered to carry their child – unaware she was plotting an elaborate ruse to con the desperate pair out of £8,000.
Days before her due date, Brown claimed she had been in a terrible car crash and that their baby had been stillborn. She even texted the Cutters an image of his dead body.
But the grieving couple called in the police after discovering Brown was never pregnant – and the baby in the picture belonged to someone else. Last week, unemployed Brown, 25, admitted surrogacy fraud at Inverness Sheriff Court.
Mrs Cutter said last night: ‘I was desolate. How could anyone do that to us, knowing how desperately we wanted that child?’
THE only thing Benita and Mark Cutter ever wanted was a baby together.
Unable to conceive, they were overjoyed when lesbian Samantha Brown, 25, approached them and agreed to act as a surrogate mother.
The couple named their f uture son Tommie and spent £7,000 decorating the nursery and buying toys.
But only days before Brown was due to give birth, she claimed she had been in a car crash and the baby had been stillborn. She even texted a picture of his body.
Despite their grief, the Cutters became suspicious and discovered they were victims of a cruel scam. Jobless Brown, who is now facing jail, had never been pregnant and the scans were fake – part of an elaborate ruse to con them out of £8,000.
Mrs Cutter, 49, said: ‘ When we stand in Tommie’s room it feels like he’s died. It’s just so horrifically painful. I can’t bring myself to pack his things away. It’s like my darling baby boy has gone and he’s never coming back. I don’t think I’ll ever stop grieving for him and what we’ve lost. Even though he didn’t actually exist, to me and Mark he was our little boy who we longed for.’
Mr Cutter, 32, said: ‘I’ve not set foot in that room for more than a year. It’s just too painful.’
The couple met Brown through a web forum called So Feminine. She gained their trust by pretending to be a former police officer.
The Cutters, from Hull, made the long journey to Tain, 25 miles north of Inverness, to stay with her and her lover Karen Galashan, 44, so Brown could inseminate herself with
‘How could anyone do that to us?’
Mr Cutter’s sperm. That September, Brown rang to say she was pregnant.
‘I remember saying, “Oh my God,”,’ said Mrs Cutter. ‘ Mark started screaming and dancing and I was crying.
‘Sam called our baby CJ, Cutter Junior, which we loved. We’d ask, “How’s CJ today?” and she’d tell us, “CJ’s had me awake all night,” or, “CJ is active today”. It made us feel a part of her pregnancy.’
The Cutters continued to pay Brown, who by now knew Mrs Cutter had been diagnosed with breast cancer, what they believed were her expenses as they waited for their dream to be realised.
Days before the due date, they received messages purporting to be from Miss Galashan – who did not face charges and is now in a relationship with a man – telling them Brown had been in a serious car crash.
Brown later sent a photo of their ‘ dead’ baby, who she claimed had died following an emergency Caesarean.
Mrs Cutter said: ‘Initially I was in floods of tears, cuddling Mark on the bed.
‘We felt such a deep sense of loss. ‘Then I started to study the photo more and I said, “Look at his pink ears and pink cheeks – and look at the baby blanket and the cot, it’s not hospital issue. That’s not our child as that’s not a dead baby. I think we’ve been conned”.’
They phoned the hospital – to be told Brown had never been a patient.
‘I just felt sick,’ Mrs Cutter said. ‘We actually thought Sam must have had second thoughts about handing over the baby – not for a second, even then, did we think she had been duping us all along.
‘The police told us everything Sam had said was false. She had never been pregnant, she had not attended any antenatal classes, had not been in a car crash, had not delivered a dead child, had not lost any wages and had not incurred the expenses she had taken from us.
‘I was desolate. I kept saying, “How could anyone do that to us, knowing how desperately we wanted that child?”.’
Mr Cutter said: ‘If that wasn’t bad enough, I had to break the news to our families. My father was so distressed he collapsed and was rushed by ambulance to hospital.’
Last week, Brown appeared at Inverness
Sheriff Court and admitted fraud. Prosecutor fiscal Roderick Urquhart told the court: ‘It would appear that the financial loss incurred by the Cutters paled almost into insignificance compared with the heartbreak, anguish and despair they suffered when they realised not only that they were not to become parents, but that they had been the victims of a calculated and callous fraud.’
Brown will be sentenced next month, but it has emerged that she is already in jail serving a three-year term for shooting her neighbour in the head with an air rifle last year in a row over seagulls.
Yesterday, Mrs Cutter said of the case: ‘It’s taken us both to the brink. It’s like our baby has died, t aking with i t our t r ust in humanity.
‘The surrogates hold all the power as they’ve got your baby – you’ll do anything to keep them happy. The law must change to protect people like us so no one else falls victim to another evil, monstrous woman like Samantha Brown.
‘She claimed she really wanted to make a difference to somebody’s life. She told me she was a former policewoman, so I was immediately reassured and felt I could trust her. She repeatedly insisted, “I’m not doing this for the money”. She was utterly convincing.’
Mr Cutter said: ‘I still can’t comprehend that this has happened to us.’
Miss Galashan, who branded the actions of her former partner ‘evil’, said she had not known what was going on at the time.
‘Sam told me she wanted a baby and I told her I would help her through a pregnancy,’ she said. ‘I thought, when I met the couple, they were there to provide a donor.
‘To think she lied to this couple and told them their baby had died, it really upsets me – it sickens me. I have no i dea what was going through her head, I can’t understand what she was thinking. I think what she did was very evil. My heart just goes out to the parents.’
She continued: ‘When the police came to see me, I didn’t know what to do. I asked them to pass on a message to Mark and Benita, to tell them I had no idea what was going on and that my heart goes out to them.’