Kilshaws to learn fate of twins

Alan and Judith Kilshaw are expected to learn tomorrow whether they will be able to keep the twins they claim to have legally adopted over the Internet.

The couple, from Buckley, north Wales, who say they paid a US baby broker £8,200 to adopt nine-month-old Belinda and Kimberley, are fighting for custody with Flintshire Social Services.

The local authority, which took the twins into care in January, wants the babies made wards of court.

Mr Justice Kirkwood was expected to give his decision at the High Court in London after hearing evidence from the parties all last week.

If he does not make the twins wards of court, they will be returned to the Kilshaws.

But if he does, he must then rule on whether Britain or the US is the correct jurisdiction to decide their fate.

Belinda and Kimberley, now the subject of a transatlantic custody battle involving their natural mother and father, are currently being cared for by foster parents.

The saga began on January 16 when The Sun newspaper revealed how the Kilshaws bought the twins after contacting an Internet adoption agency, but Californian couple Richard and Vickie Allen said they had already bid for the youngsters.

The Allens, who had the babies for two months, say they were duped into returning the twins to their natural mother, 28-year-old Tranda Wecker, who resold them through baby broker Tina Johnson.

An emergency protection order was served on the Kilshaws on January 18 and the twins, swaddled in blankets, were taken into the care of Flintshire social services following a swoop by police.

Two days later Flintshire County Council lodged an appeal to the Family Division of the High Court, sitting in Birmingham, to make the twins wards of court.

Mr Justice Kirkwood adjourned the hearing after three days, asking the Kilshaws not to speak publicly about the case.

But on February 1, the Kilshaws came face-to-face with their Californian rivals, the Allens, on The Oprah Winfrey show and were immediately served with a writ by the US couple who claim to be the babies’ legal parents.

Tranda Wecker, the twins’ biological mother, then appointed a child law specialist to represent her at the UK hearings and Aaron Wecker, the natural father of the twins, applied to a court in Missouri for custody of the twins.