Couple left devastated after ‘surrogate’ mum lied about pregnancy …and even sent them fake ultrasound scan
IT IS a delicate process built on trust and for many desperate couples it can be their last chance to become parents when all other avenues are closed.
Now one Scottish couple have been left devastated after a surrogate they befriended online conned them for five months into thinking she was expecting their child.
Louise Kimmet, from Glasgow, agreed to be their surrogate for £10,000 and the 32-year-old also asked for £1,000 up front to cover her initial expenses.
But after agreeing the five-figure fee, the mother of three embarked on an elaborate plan to defraud the couple by convincing them she was pregnant.
She pretended to have visited her GP and to have attended a maternity appointment at hospital.
In a further cruel twist, as proof to the excited couple that the ‘pregnancy’ was progressing well, she even sent them an ultrasound scan image purporting to be of their baby.
However, Kimmet, who is thought to have ‘conceived’ using a home insemination kit, was not pregnant and it was only when the fraud victims – who are in their early 50s and from Ayrshire – became suspicious and contacted the hospital themselves that her deception was uncovered.
Last week Kimmet appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court, where she admitted a charge of fraud between November 2020 and March 2021.
Sentence was deferred pending background reports until next month.
It is understood Kimmet, who was released on bail and is likely to face a community payback order, is set to claim she originally registered as a surrogate for the ‘best of reasons’ and not because she intended to defraud anyone.
A source said yesterday that the offence occurred while Kimmet was in the middle of a
A surrogate in UK can only receive expenses
relationship break-up and she had subsequently found herself unable to tell the couple the truth when she discovered she was not pregnant.
She returned the £1,000 to them and is said to be ‘mortified’ by her actions and the devastation she caused.
The case comes at a time when the UK’s surrogacy laws are under review by the Scottish Law Commission and the Law Commission of England and Wales in an attempt to tighten up regulation of the process and make it easier to monitor.
Key proposals being considered include allowing the intended parents to become the child’s legal parents from the moment of birth, as well as introducing a specific regulation for surrogacy arrangements and safeguards such as counselling and independent legal advice.
Meanwhile, the UK is still one of the few countries where surrogacy is legal but a surrogate can only receive ‘reasonable pregnancy-related expenses’.
This is in stark contrast to the US where women can be paid £26,000 to £52,000 per pregnancy, with health insurance included.
Surrogates in the UK can become pregnant through two options – straight surrogacy, which involves artificial insemination at home or a clinic, or host surrogacy, which involves the fertilised egg being implanted medically.
Legitimate expenses are classed as costs for travel, treatment, maternity clothes, loss of earnings or for childcare costs if the surrogate already has children.
Last week’s case mirrors that of fake surrogate mother Samantha Brown, 26, of Tain, Ross-shire, who conned a couple out of £8,000 in 2016.
Benita Cutter, 49, and husband Mark, 33, also spent a
She pretended to have visited her GP
further £7,000 on equipment and a nursery for the baby they believed Brown was expecting. But days before the baby’s ‘due date’ Brown told the couple she had been in a car crash and their baby had been stillborn.
Police exposed the cruel hoax and she was later sentenced at Inverness Sheriff Court to two years in prison for fraud.
Yesterday a Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘Fraud in any form is completely unacceptable and often has a lasting effect on victims and their families.’