Paternity Fraud victim attempt to claim damages

Paternity fraud victim Mr Webb claims he endured “17 years of lies and deceit” when Lydia Chapman became pregnant by her lover but convinced him that he was the father and not her lover. The 47-year-old is now pursuing her, and the person he claims is her girl’s true father through the courts in a try to claim compensation from them for the cash he spent on raising the girl. His attorney, Nicholas Mostyn, QC, informed the Appeal Court in London the supposed paternity crime case raised “profound questions” about a partner’s “duty of candour”. “Honesty and good religion lie at the heart of the contract of marriage,” he revealed. The court heard the child was conceived during “an act of unprotected sex” between Mrs Chapman and her lover at a hotel in 1985.

But Mrs Chapman, a 45-year-old who is living in Southampton, told her partner that he was the biological father, and when the baby girl was born she was registered as their child.

Judges were told that when she was just 3 months old, her mother and her lover met again at a summer barbecue and had sex in a picnic area.

They are claimed to have debated her paternity and “set out to deceive” Mr Webb into believing he was the child’s father. Mrs Chapman was described as an “inveterate liar” who for many years had a “fixed and certain knowledge” that her husband wasn’t the father of her child. It wasn’t till the girl was 18 years old that DNA paternity tests proved that Mr Webb wasn’t the girl’s father, and his wife filed for divorce.

Mr Webb first launched a claim for damages against his ex and her lover at Bournemouth County Court, accusing them of cheating him about who the girl’s pop was.

But this claim denied by the couple was discharged by a judge. But he added that if it went ahead, it might “visit on the litigants enormous burdens, both monetary and emotional, which are disproportionate to any prospects of success”. The judge, sitting with Lord Justice Aikens and Mr Justice Bennett, concluded : “This entire case can be classified as a setback to all those engaged in it. I wouldn’t wish to be the one to extend their setbacks further.”.

The sole option remaining to Mr Webb is to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Child support ordered despite test

A Toronto man must continue to pay child support despite a DNA test proving he is not the biological father of his ex-wife’s children, a judge ruled.

Pasqualino Cornelio, who believed he fathered the 16-year-old twins after being given “incomplete and misleading information” by his ex-wife, will also not be reimbursed for previous child support payments.

“While the failure of (Anciolina) Cornelio to disclose to her husband the fact that she had an extramarital affair and that the twins might not be his biological children may well have been a moral wrong against Mr. Cornelio, it is a wrong that does not afford him a legal remedy to recover child support he has already paid, and that does not permit him to stop paying child support,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Katherine van Rensburg wrote in her decision.

The mother claimed to have conveniently forgot that she had an affair!

DNA test firms profiting from Credit Crunch

Business is booming for a paternity testing firm after a rise in relationship difficulties amid credit crunch financial worries. Sunderland-based Complement Genomics’s dadcheck testing service has received a record number of investigations in the first weeks of 2009.

Business grew continuously during last year but the unique swell in activity since New Year has come as a surprise for chairman Louise Allcroft. She revealed : “We have been shocked at the level of interest in DNA testing following the vacations.

“The level of interest shown obviously suggests that folks see resolution of relationship issues as a high concern.

“We know that this could be a busy time for divorce barristers, and the large number of investigations that we’ve received indicates this also is applicable to paternity.”.

It would seem that fathers are less willing to payout for kids that they have not fathered in these difficult economic times.

Reducing your child support payments

As promised, here are some tips for reducing your child support payments (UK specific). I won’t get into the whole moral issue of whether this is the right thing to do, that’s your choice. For me personally, I would rather have the extra cash and be able to spend it on my kids myself, than support my kid’s mothers and in the one case, her other to new kids (for a married man).

Anyway…

1. Pay more on your mortgage – On the old CSA assessment method, your living expenses will be taken into consideration before maintenance is calculated. This only applies to you if you are on the old assessment system.

2. Keep them overnight as much as possible – If you regularly spent time with your kids say Friday to Sunday, then those two nights should be deducted from your maintenance. Add any additional days you take them away. Two weeks in the sun during the summer, when they stop over during the christmas break. You should be compensated for this so if it works out to 2 nights a week on average, this will net you 2/7th reduction in your maintenance.

3. Take into account travel expenses – If it costs you more than £10 a week to keep in contact with your child, then this can be taken into account. This could include phone bills, or travel expenses to go and visit or have them visit you.

4. Pay yourself in dividends – if you own your own business. It is perfectly legal to decrease your actual salary to a bare minumum of say £5000 and pay yourself if dividends. Earnings derived from shareholdings are not normally taken into account for your assessment and you have no obligation to inform the CSA about them. The CSA don’t normally count dividends paid to a director of a Ltd company, unless the mother asks them to.

5. Don’t brag to your ex-partner – if she thinks you are earning more money she may query this with the CSA, who may come looking and try to assess you based on their perception of your current lifestyle, and look more closely at your finances.

6. Come to an agreement – if she is not a total bi*ch and you can actually come to an arrangement then the best bet would be to agree on an amount between yourselves that is obviously lower than what you would have to pay normally. If this is the case, keep a record of all payments made.

Paternity fraud is okay unless your a man

A retired Army colonel Scott Carlson, 53, was convicted of conspiracy and attempted theft by deception for getting a friend to take a paternity test in his place.

His lawyer plans to appeal the sentence the 4 to 23 month prison term imposed by Cumberland County President Judge Edgar Bayley.

Now doesn’t that strike you as odd, that a woman can lie about the parentage of her child and get away with it, but the moment a man does it, he’s seen as some sort of dead beat dad and sent to prison!