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Since the child wasn’t his, this husband decided to sue his wife for the money he spent on their 8-year-old son. All of it. Every single penny.
After finding out that the boy that he raised for 8 years was actually biologically fathered by someone else that his wife had had a previous affair with, one London man decided to take his wife to court. He’s trying to get back “every penny” he spent over the last 8 years raising the boy.
The husband also wants damages to compensate for distress after discovering that his son is not biologically his own.
Details from the case started to emerge in July, when the man and woman were arguing over whether or not the boy should be told who his biological father was. While the husband argues that he should be told, his estranged wife does not want to let him know at this time.
However, Mr Justice Cohen said that the boy shouldn’t be told “until the time was right.” The judge has banned the man from publicly naming the child’s true biological father, and the judge has ruled that no one involved in the case could be named in media reports. He also added that a social worker would give the family advice on the issue at hand, and decide when the boy will be given the information.
While Mr Justice Cohen acknowledges that the man was devastated to learn he was not the biological father, stating that he was “full of controlled anger,” he also acknowledges that the woman was “full of remorse” for having the affair and for covering up the truth about the boy’s biological father.
Paternal fraud is difficult to track because there is little research done on the subject. However, there was a 2005 study that was published in the journal Epidemial Community Health that looked at the subject. The study found that the median average of men unknowingly raising a child that isn’t biologically theirs was four percent, or one in 25.
Paternity fraud itself is extremely difficult to prove. Showing that the man is not the child’s biological father is not sufficient on its own. The accuser must demonstrate that the mother deliberately misled the father.
