IVF mix-up left boy with ‘wrong father’

A BOY had the wrong father for 13 years after a fertility clinic which treated his mother used another man’s sperm by mistake, it was reported yesterday.

The British youngster, who cannot be named, fought a six-year legal battle to confirm the man he knew as dad was not his natural father, The Sun reported.

The boy, who won the right to a DNA test, told the newspaper he always knew he was not his real father. He said: “I am relieved to know the truth at last, but I have no wish to know who my real father is.”

In 1988 the mother and her then husband went for IVF treatment and paid stg£5,000 to a fertility clinic at the private Wellington Hospital, St John’s Wood, north west London.

Lawyer Patricia Hollings said the case could have been resolved at an early stage, avoiding the cost, aggravation and stress of the court proceedings.

She said the confirmation would raise psychological and emotional issues for the child.

On his early sense that he had the wrong father, Ms Hollings said: “The relationship broke down when the child was very young. It was only over the years the child began to appreciate there were distinctions between himself and his father, both on a physical and a characteristic level.”

Angela McNab, chief executive of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said she understood the case happened a long time ago, before the authority was established. It regulates clinics by carrying out routine annual inspections, in an effort to keep mistakes at a minimum.

A spokesman for the Wellington Hospital said the hospital had not practised IVF for “many, many years” and had changed hands several times since 1988.

He added: “No-one who looks at a case like this can fail to have sympathy with those involved.”