Dragons’ Den star regrets emotive offer to ‘buy’ baby

DRAGONS’ Den entrepreneur James Caan has become the subject of controversy after he was filmed offering to buy a baby girl from a poverty stricken family in Pakistan.

The Pakistan-born star was in the country filming an ITV report about his charity work when he was handed a newborn baby girl.

Incredibly, moments after taking the baby in his arms in a flood-hit village, he offered to buy the child for 100,000 rupees (€1,600) to give to his brother.

“I’m being 100% serious. My brother lives here and he desperately wants a baby. We can give this baby the best life she could possibly have,” the Daily Mail quoted Caan as saying.

His daughter Hanah tries to intervene to stop him but it’s only later after reflection that the star backtracks, claiming he was overcome with emotion.

“I was literally at that moment in time so taken away with emotion. What I have to remember is that I am here to build a village. That child belongs to that family,” he later told the ITV crew.

The Dragons’ Den star admitted it was “clearly wrong” to offer to buy the baby girl from the family in the flood-hit village.

Caan said he responded emotionally, rather than rationally.

The entrepreneur, born in Pakistan, was looking for a village he could help rebuild in the wake of the August floods that devastated his country, leaving 2,000 people dead and affecting up to 20 million people.

In an interview with BBC Radio’s 5 Live, he said he regretted his actions.

“In that moment of emotion, you immediately feel there’s something you could do,” he said.

“What can you do to increase that child’s survival? So I offered to help the family by offering to adopt the baby and then on reflection realised that the baby belongs to the family and the village and I’m really here to adopt a village, not a baby.”

He said what he did was “clearly not the right thing to do” and he had not been thinking rationally.