Court fight over black twins born to white couple

A white mother who gave birth to black twins after a mistake at an NHS fertility clinic is facing a legal challenge to keep the children.

A white mother who gave birth to black twins after a mistake at an NHS fertility clinic is facing a legal challenge to keep the children.

The case, unprecedented in the British courts, also involves a black couple who had fertility treatment at the same clinic. A court hearing has now been scheduled for October to determine who is the biological father of the twins.

A Department of Health source admitted there had been a "seriously unfortunate error." A High Court injunction was served to stop the parents, children, clinic or NHS trust being identified. The mistake is understood to have happened before 2001, which could mean the twins are now more than a year old.

The white couple reportedly went to a fertility clinic, linked to the trust, after trying unsuccessfully for years to have a child. They had in-vitro fertilisation, or IVF, treatment, where sperm from a male donor are used to fertilise an egg to produce an embryo which is then implanted in the woman. The black couple are reported to have sought similar treatment.

After the white mother gave birth, the twin babies were clearly dark-skinned and the couple were horrified to think something could have gone wrong. But they were determined to keep the children.

It is possible that the clinic mistakenly used a black man's sperm to fertilise the white woman's egg. Alternatively, a black couple's embryo could have been taken out of the incubator and implanted in the white mother.

Fertility experts insisted that mistakes were "exceptionally rare". Embryologists are supposed to double-check the identity of sperm, eggs and embryos at every stage.

But Dr Sammy Lee, of the Portland Hospital in London, admitted that "human error" could always occur. "It is a very stressful environment," he said. "If you have got a lot of couples coming through, the incubator is full of dishes, and you are working a very tight schedule, then it is possible that the wrong dish may have been taken out of the incubator."

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, of the British Medical Association, said that legally the woman who carried a child was the mother, regardless of its genetic inheritance. Medical lawyers agreed, but said there could be a question over the legal status of the father.