Couple discovers twins are not biologically related due to agency error

A British-based couple who had twins through an overseas surrogacy agency later discovered they had no biological connection to the children after the agency mistakenly used donor sperm.

The couple, referred to as PP and QQ in court documents, were “devastated” after making the discovery via DNA tests while applying for British citizenship for the children.

The Sri Lankan surrogacy agency used by the couple initially confirmed the embryos had been created using the intended father’s sperm, but later claimed the couple had signed a consent form allowing them to use donor sperm. The couple deny this.

The children’s mother said the DNA result had “struck us like a thunderbolt” but they wanted to protect the children and bring them home, saying they were “meant for us”.

They were forced to withdraw their application for a parental order, which confers legal parentage from the surrogate to the intended parents, and instead apply for an adoption order for the children, which was granted.

In a judgment handed down last week, Mr Justice Peel said the couple were “blameless” and were “desperate to bring up the children, whom they adore”. He said whether the sperm mix-up had been “an inadvertent error, perhaps as a result of poor internal processes, or was intentionally done (for whatever reason) is not clear”.

The couple, who are from Sri Lanka and met in the UK in 2016, had spent years trying to conceive after marrying in 2017, and embarked on IVF treatment, which proved unsuccessful.

They travelled to India for further IVF, which led to the birth of twins, who died within a few days due to health complications. Their mother, QQ, was advised not to attempt to get pregnant again.

They then travelled to Sri Lanka after a family friend offered to be a surrogate for them. The women became pregnant with twins.

The surrogacy agency used by the couple, Wish Fertility, confirmed in writing that the embryos had been created using donor eggs and PP’s sperm, as they had specified.

But DNA tests, carried out as part of the British citizenship application process for the children, revealed that PP was not the child’s biological father. The Home Office was informed of the negative DNA test, and British citizenship was granted to the seven-month-old twins in March.

Wish Fertility claimed the couple had signed a consent form allowing them to use donor sperm as well as PP’s sperm. They said embryologists had used both samples in the fertilisation process, and it had been impossible to tell which sperm was used in the implanted embryos.

Peel rejected this claim, saying that as two embryos had been created and transferred, leading to the birth of the non-identical twins who are both unrelated to PP, it appeared likely PP’s sperm was not used at all.

He also said there was no evidence of the couple having signed a form authorising the use of donor sperm, and that no issues had been raised about the quality of PP’s sperm, so there had been no need to use a donor.

Peel also said the clinic’s assertion that it had been impossible to tell the difference between the two sperm samples during the embryo creation process was “startling” and “improbable”.