Informal Arrangement Brings Long-term Responsibility

The dangers of doing important things the casual way were spelled out clearly in a recent case in which a 37-year-old London man was recently left to count the cost of being an ‘informal’ sperm donor, after the Child Support Agency (CSA) ruled that he is responsible for paying maintenance to the mother of the children he ‘fathered’.

The man was approached by a lesbian couple who wished to have a family and he agreed to father two children, now aged four and two years old. He took no part in the children’s lives and it was agreed that he would not have any financial responsibility for them.

When the couple split up, however, the CSA became involved and sought to enforce its legal right to seek financial support from the biological parent of the two children. The man is now faced with annual child support costs of thousands of pounds despite having no rights whatsoever over the children.