Sperm donor ordered to pay £300,000 after affair with client he met on a website where he said he was available for 'breeding parties'

The man - Mr F - claimed that pregnancy was not a result of sex

But High Court ruled he had affair with woman who was originally a client

Mr F even organised 'breeding party orgy' online to make babies



Must pay £300,000 costs to her and £13,000 to her scorned ex-husband

Paternity costs for his toddler daughter will be decided at a later hearing



A prolific sperm donor who advertised himself for ‘breeding parties’ has been ordered to pay £300,000 after fathering a child with a married client during a fling.

The man, who claims to have sired 30 children, was ruled the legal parent of a two-year-old boy conceived after an affair.

His claim that conception was the result of artificial insemination rather than ‘ordinary sex’ was rejected by the court, which heard he used his fertility to get women into bed.

Paying the price: A sperm donor who has fathered more than 30 children must pay £300,000 legal costs after an affair with a client, the High court found

A judge heard that his activity on an unofficial donation website was designed ‘to meet his own sexual needs’.

The man – known only as Mr F – had also advertised online for a ‘breeding party – a male-dominated orgy designed to get a woman pregnant’.

At London’s High Court Family Division, Mr Justice Peter Jackson ruled that Mr F faces £300,000 in legal costs as well as paying for the child’s upkeep.

He said the donor and the client – referred to as Mrs M – had an ‘intense extramarital affair’ in 2010 after they met through a website.

The woman had been told the chances of having a baby were ‘pretty grim’ because her husband had had a vasectomy and was 30 years older. In March 2010, they met the donor in a cafe, but the husband was not happy with the plans and left.

Ruling: Justice Peter Jackson called the man and woman 'untruthful, devious and manipulative' but agreed her pregnancy was as a result of them becoming lovers

However, three months later Mrs M spent a weekend at Mr F’s flat, where she claimed they had sex. She continued to see him and, according to her, they had sex on a number of occasions.



Her husband – who she divorced in February last year – had been ‘out of his depth and powerless’ as the fling with Mr F developed, the court heard.

The matter came to court when Mrs M claimed their meetings involved ‘15 days of sex’, while Mr F said they involved ‘15 donations by artificial insemination’.



The judge said: ‘I accept that Mr F first became involved in licensed donation altruistically and even now, I do not discount a residual element of altruism in his make-up or forget that there are many much-wanted children alive today as a result of his efforts.



‘However, I am clear that in relation to his website activity his mainspring has been to meet his own needs, at least at a sexual level.’

Mr F was also said to have ‘engaged in sexual activity’ with both members of a lesbia pair who had approached him via the website.



But his prolific sexual activity with recipients amounted to a ‘brazen flouting’ of the rules of the website, said the judge. Mr F was ‘bound in his professional life by a clear code of ethics’, which made the risks he took ‘the more surprising’, he said.

‘In one relevant period of two to three months alone, he was on his own account having sex with three women and providing artificial insemination to two others,’ added the judge.

‘Most of these contacts had to be kept secret from the other women involved.

‘The sheer logistical challenge alongside his professional life will have been a burden that he would have been likely to have laid down if he had not been driven on by some degree of compulsion.’

The judge said the case had revealed problems in controlling the ‘informal trade’ in fertility treatment. Those seeking to conceive may be in a ‘vulnerable state and not all donors are motivated by altruism’, he claimed.

Career: The man was a licensed sperm donor who apparently used his fertility to get women into bed

‘Some births follow treatment at licensed clinics and others originate from informal arrangements,’ said the judge.



‘Either way, those involved must often be confronted by profound feelings and powerful forces.

‘These include, relevantly to this case, a yearning for children, a need for friendship and a hunger for sex, forces that can overpower and defeat routine social conventions.’

He said the trade in informal donations – which is legal – is not regulated ‘in any meaningful way’.

The website in the case – which was not named – charges high fees while projecting a ‘rose-tinted account of successful, problem-free conception’, he said.