UK mum forces adopted teen daughter to get pregnant

A British mother forced her 14-year-old adopted daughter to inseminate herself with donor sperm to provide a baby for her after she was prevented from adopting any more children.

The case has emerged in a previously secret court judgment, reported yesterday for the first time, which raises questions over loopholes in international adoptions and the regulation of the global traffic in human eggs and sperm.

The daughter, a virgin, is believed to have miscarried at 14, but went on to have a baby at 16 after regularly inseminating herself with sperm bought over the internet by her "domineering" mother because she was too scared to refuse.

The adoptive mother, who cannot be identified to protect her daughter and grandchild, is now serving a five-year jail term after admitting child cruelty. However, the date of the judgement was not reported.

In a high court judgment deciding welfare provisions, family division judge Mr Justice Peter Jackson described "an abiding sense of disbelief that a parent could behave in such a wicked and selfish way towards a vulnerable child".

The mother had already adopted three children as babies from abroad, twice when she was married and once after her divorce. She had chosen not to give birth herself because of a health condition and had undergone an elective sterilisation. But she was distraught when an attempt to adopt a fourth baby was not approved.

The judgment, released after representations from media groups, states the mother immediately turned to her adopted daughter.