Veteran’s widow wins right to have his child

THE most senior family judge in England and Wales has apologised to the widow of a Falklands veteran as he overturned an administrative error that would have stopped her having her late husband’s child.

Sir James Munby, president of the Family Division of the High Court, struck out a legal restriction which prevented Samantha Jefferies using embryos frozen before her husband Clive’s death two years ago.

The couple had been undergoing fertility treatment when Mr Jefferies – a serviceman in the Royal Army Medical Corps who survived the bombing of the transport ship Sir Galahad in 1982 – died of a brain haemorrhage aged 51.

They had permission to keep three frozen embryos for 10 years from 2013, but the clinic had mistakenly amended the period to two years and was going to allow the embryos to perish.

Mrs Jefferies, 42, of East Sussex, could only have the original time limit restored by a legal declaration from the court. The clinic – Sussex Downs Fertility Centre – supported her application.

She told the court that her husband was “a wonderful man”, adding: “I want my husband’s child.”

Jenni Richards, her QC, told the judge: “The embryos she is seeking to preserve represent her last chance of having the child of her husband.”

Sir James told Mrs Jefferies: “I am just so sorry that people like you should have no idea that this can end up in court because of mistakes made by other people.”

Mrs Jefferies, an occupational therapist, said afterwards that she had no immediate plan to use the embryos. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority backed her application and the clinic funded her legal costs.