Legal battle over Internet twins

The Allens pictured with the babies and their adopted son, in October

LONDON, England -- A British couple who adopted twin girls from the U.S. over the Internet are facing a legal battle to keep them.

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).

UK Home Secretary Jack Straw has promised to investigate the transatlantic wrangle, calling the buying and selling of children "a revolting idea," while the Allens have threatened police action to try to get them back.

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The Kilshaws, from north Wales, insist they have done nothing legally wrong and say their next step will be to apply for British citizenship for the twins.

The couple flew to the U.S. after paying an American baby broker more than £8,000 ($12,000) to arrange the adoption of the girls, who they have named Belinda and Kimberley.

However the Internet firm caring Heart Adoption had already placed the twins with the Allens, who live in California, who raised them for two months but did not adopt them.

The babies' natural mother, Tranda Wecker, told the Allens she wanted to spend two days with her daughters, to say a final farewell, and handed them over to the Kilshaws in a hotel in San Diego.

The British couple, pursued by the Allens, went to Arkansas in order to adopt the babies under the state's more relaxed adoption laws, before bringing the girls into Britain.

Speaking to the BBC, Alan Kilshaw said: "We will be making an application to the Home Office for British citizenship for these children, on the basis that the UK recognises an adoption in the U.S.

"The UK cannot pick and choose which bits of American adoption it recognises... you either recognise American adoption or you don't, it's as simple as that."

Straw said he would investigate the case.

"It's a matter of huge concern. I share that concern as a parent as much as a senior minister in this government," he told the UK's Channel Four News.

"It is illegal, completely illegal in this country for people to buy and sell babies or children and that is entirely as it should be because it is frankly a revolting idea.

"Obviously what happened, happened in other jurisdictions in the United States, but nonetheless we need to look at the circumstances. There is also an issue of immigration control."

The UK Sun newspaper quoted Wecker, the natural mother, on Wednesday as admitting she lied on adoption papers transferring her daughters to the Kilshaws by falsely claiming she had been living in Arkansas.

The Kilshaws, who already have three children, said they turned to the Internet because they wanted another daughter and felt they would be turned down by the authorities in the UK.

But the case has led to criticism from family groups in Britain.

Felicity Collier, chief executive of British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, said: "This case demonstrates why private adoption is illegal in the UK. It is totally unacceptable to BAAF that children are sold to the highest bidder."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Couples fight for Internet twins
January 16, 2001

UK Home Office
British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering

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