Couples fight for Internet twins

LONDON, England -- A British couple embroiled in an adoption battle over the twins they adopted over the Internet have vowed to keep the girls.

Alan and Judith Kilshaw bought the six-month-old babies via a U.S. Internet adoption agency and brought them to Britain on six-month visitors' passports.

But before being given to the Kilshaws, the adoption agency had placed the twins with American couple Richard and Vickie Allen, who had paid £4,000 ($5,900).

The Allens, who had the twins for two months but did not adopt them, now say the Kilshaws have no legal right to the children because they failed to follow correct U.S. adoption procedures.

Richard Allen told British television show GMTV on Tuesday: "They were taken to Arkansas which had no jurisdiction, and then the Kilshaws paid everyone involved to take the children out of the country without any legal right or justification in doing so."

The twins were handed over to the Kilshaws by their birth mother who told the Allens she wanted some time with the children -- and Judith Kilshaw said the natural mother has the final say.

"The birth mother will go with us, she has gone with us, I'm sorry for the Allens, but that's it. I know it might not be moral, but by law we're in the right," she said.

The couple said they now intend to apply for British citizenship for the babies who they have named Kimberley and Belinda.

Speaking later at a news conference at a hotel near Chester in the north of England, where they live with their three other children, the Kilshaws said they had given "two children who would not have a home a good home. There is a lot we can offer them."

But Richard Allen said he and his wife did everything legally in the State of California to start the adoption process.

"We were willing to work with attorneys both in Missouri, which is the State of residence of both the mother and the children, and those in the State of California as required by US law and the interstate... act to comply with the laws of the United States with regard to the childrens' adoption," he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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