A middle-class couple risked prison when they adopted another woman’s baby and paid her nearly £5,000, a court was told.
The pair made the arrangement after they learned that the pregnant woman and her husband had decided to have an abortion.
Under English law natural mothers can be paid only expenses by someone who hopes to become the parent of their child, and the payment of extra fees is a crime.
But social workers alerted the police after the money changed hands – putting the couple at risk of facing six months in jail or a fine of £10,000.
The court heard that the well-off couple had been trying unsuccessfully for five years to start a family before social workers admitted them to a course for potential adoptive parents in 2013.
A fortnight after they began the course, the husband was asked by a junior colleague if she could have time off work. The woman said she wanted to go to help an old friend who was undergoing an abortion.
During the conversation, the husband told his colleague that he and his wife hoped to adopt a baby, and the woman decided to introduce her friend to her boss.
High Court judge Mr Justice Keehan said of the pregnant woman and her husband: ‘They felt that, given their financial circumstances, they were not in a position to look after another child.
Accordingly, they had come to the difficult and sad conclusion that she should undergo a termination.
‘When told that there were two people, a Sikh couple, who would be potential carers for their unborn child, they were delighted
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