A British couple spent 10 years trying to
conceive. Then the husband's friend
recommended herbal programme and introduced
them to Dr Cletus Okolo in Lagos who they paid
£4,500 for bags of herbs to help them conceive.
The herbs made the woman swell up as if
pregnant. Read full story below...
From Daily Mail
A couple’s desperation for a baby led them
into a programme of bogus herbal
treatments that convinced them she was
pregnant and had given birth - until DNA
tests proved it was a lie. The British couple,
who have not been named, returned from
the specialist hospital in Nigeria to bring up
their 'daughter' in Britain when they were
arrested, and the little girl seized.
They had gone to a doctor in Lagos, Nigeria,
to spend more than £4,500 on 'herbs' in a
last ditch attempt to conceive after a decade
of trying. Miraculously, the substances they
ate seemed to mimic the effects of
pregnancy. Even a London GP believed the
symptoms, issuing a maternity leave
certificate.
Nine months later, Dr Cletus Okolo staged a
charade labour, during which the mother was
drugged. At the end, she was handed what she
believed to be her daughter.
But when they arrived back home, with little
documentation, social workers were suspicious
and eventually arrested the couple, taking the
little girl into care.
Ten months later, they still cannot accept that the
child they brought home from Nigeria is not their
own, although DNA tests have shown
conclusively that they are not the biological
parents.
Now, in a unique decision by top family judge
Mrs Justice Hogg, the ‘intelligent, educated, hard
working’ couple has been cleared the of
allegations that they were knowing parties to the
fraud.
The judge said that, despite 10 years of trying
surgery, laser treatment and IVF, the couple, both
British citizens, had failed to conceive a child.
However, in 2010, the father bumped into a friend
from university who told of a couple who had had
twins after undergoing ‘some herbal treatment’ in
Nigeria.
They leaped at the chance and travelled to Nigeria
where a Dr Cletus Okolo prescribed a course of
herbal treatments he claimed would do the trick.
On returning to Britain and taking the herbs, the
mother noticed her body changing.
Her face, arms and belly all swelled up and even
a ‘kindly and well-meaning’ local GP took the
symptoms to mean she was seven months
pregnant.
The doctor signed off a maternity certificate and
the couple travelled back to Nigeria.
At the clinic near Lagos they handed over £4,500
and the mother was given a brown liquid to drink
before entering what she thought was a delivery
room.
The father waited in the corridor outside and, after
few minutes, heard a baby cry.
He entered the room to find the baby girl -
referred to in court only as ‘A’ - lying on the bed
beside his semi-conscious wife.
He was shown a fake umbilical cord being cut
and given a placenta to carry away in a plastic
bag.
Afterwards, Dr Okolo wrote: 'Treatment
successful, patient delivered of a baby girl. All
fees paid. God’s doing'.
That was the only document that accompanied
the birth and, when the couple flew home with
their 'daughter', social workers were quickly on
the alert.
They were later arrested and the baby girl was
taken into police protection. To the couple’s
‘considerable dismay and shock’, DNA testing
proved that the little girl was not their child.
Having waited so long for a baby, the couple
refused accept the truth.
They insisted ‘the combination of spiritual and
herbal treatments was so powerful as to be able
to change DNA’.
But the judge said: 'There is no evidence before
me to say that the result of the DNA testing was
wrong or likely to be wrong. I do not accept the
explanation of the parents.
'On that basis I have to accept the validity of the
results and find that the baby is not the biological
child of the putative parents.'
Social workers from the London Borough of
Hillingdon, as well as the child’s court-appointed
guardian, argued that the couple were ‘knowing
parties to an elaborate fraud and charade upon
the British immigration authorities and now
parties to an attempted fraud on the Court.'
They said the couple’s account of the birth was
‘littered with inconsistency’ and implausibly
embellished.
The judge conceded: 'At first blush, the immediate
reaction of the ordinary man on the proverbial
Clapham omnibus would no doubt be, "don’t be
daft, it's a fraud, they knew it”.'
However, noting the ‘enormous difficulty’ the
couple had had in conceiving a child, Mrs Justice
Hogg took them at their word when they said
they would ‘never seek to buy a baby’.
She added: 'Despite their education and
intelligence, they are struggling with the result of
the DNA test. Both of them say they still believe
that A is their natural child.
'In the end, having considered all the evidence...I
am driven to conclude that in some way they
allowed themselves to be duped by fraudsters.
'They so much wanted a baby....they allowed
themselves to fall under the spell of the
herbalists, believing what was said to the mother
and acting faithfully upon the instructions given
to them.
'Contrary to the submissions of the local authority
and guardian I do not find that the parents were
wilfully and knowingly involved with or parties to
a wrongful removal of A from her mother, or that
they cynically ‘bought’ a baby.'
The judge concluded: 'What is clear to me, having
found that she is not their biological child but the
child of another mother and father, and having
been removed from her mother very soon after
her birth, is that A certainly is the victim of
wrongdoing and illegality, and very possibly her
mother as well.
'The fact remains that A is effectively an orphan.
There is noone in this country who has parental
responsibility for her and no information as to her
birth, parentage, or background.'
Mrs Justice Hogg directed a further hearing to
decide where the little girl’s best interests lie. Her
finding that the couple were innocent dupes will
greatly improve their chances of persuading the
court that A’s future should be with them.
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