Surrogate Mother Wins Custody Battle of a Child As Court Finds Out Gay Couple Exploited & Manipulated Her

    

A woman who agreed to be a surrogate for a gay couple after a 30-minute meeting in a Burger King restaurant but then refused to hand over the baby has won the bitter custody battle.

A judge ruled last week that the woman’s learning difficulties had made her unable to ‘consent freely or unconditionally’ to the surrogacy.

The extraordinary case cast light on the murky world of unregulated surrogacy in Britain, and Ms Justice Russell described the gay couple’s dealings with the mother as ‘manipulative and dishonest’ and ‘at the very least, potentially exploitative’.

She said the woman, who cannot be identified, was ‘better able to meet’ all the baby’s emotional and physical needs, despite having no biological link to him.

Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that the woman, who we called Jennifer Gibson, had struck a deal to give birth to the baby after being ‘matched’ to the gay couple by a fixer who runs a secret Facebook forum for would-be parents looking for surrogates.

She met the couple in a Burger King in February 2014 and agreed to carry the baby, which was created using a donor egg from an anonymous woman from the United States and the sperm of one of the gay men.

The couple agreed to pay her £9,000. It is illegal to profit from surrogacy in the UK, but surrogates can be reimbursed up to £15,000 for ‘expenses’. 

Two embryos were implanted at a clinic in Cyprus but Jennifer began to have doubts after receiving a Facebook message from a woman who had previously been a surrogate for the couple, delivering twins

The woman claimed she had not been paid fairly, and had been left with medical complications.

Jennifer miscarried one of the babies and decided to abort the second. However, she then changed her mind and kept it after giving birth last July.

The boy has remained with the mother at the home she shares with her partner and their six-year-old son. 

Jennifer is regarded as his mother under British law unless she agrees to a parental order appointing the gay couple as his legal parents.

She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘He is my little boy. I gave birth to him. I felt him kick for the first time. I’m the one now breastfeeding him. He’s happy and so loved. I’m absolutely terrified I’m going to lose him.’

In her ruling on Thursday at the High Court Family Division, Ms Justice Russell granted the couple contact with the baby for one weekend every eight weeks. Parental responsibility is to be shared between Jennifer, her partner and the boy’s biological father.