A man has revealed how he will never forgive his ex for pretending her friend’s little boy was his child in a bid to trick him into paying child maintenance.

Tracey Hardy, from Macclesfield, told her ex John she was pregnant and then claimed a friend’s child was her own for five years so that he would pay child maintenance after he dumped her by text.

John became close to his ‘son’ Tyler, seeing him regularly and even spent £15,000 on maintenance and legal fees for custody battles.

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But after he hadn’t see him for two years, he reported him missing to the police in 2017.




The truths were revealed when the story unfolded in BBC One’s Reported Missing, which aired on Tuesday night.

When John discovered the news, he was heartbroken and said: ‘It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through in my life.’

Police initially thought John was delusional as Hardy repeatedly denied having a son.

Tracey Hardy, from Macclesfield, told her ex John she was pregnant and then claimed a friend’s child was her own for five years so that he would pay child maintenance (Picture: Reported Missing / BBC)

When they searched for Tyler through social services, there was no record of the little boy either and they were told by Hardy’s neighbours that they’d never seen a child going into her house.

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It was only when they spoke to her 16-year-old daughter that they discovered that the boy John had become close to was actually the son of a family friend.

When they asked Hardy, she admitted to pretending the child was theirs out of revenge and so she could get money out of him.

In the documentary, John, whose real identity is kept hidden, says: ‘I can’t really describe it and if I do describe it I’m sort of reliving that emotion and I never want to do that again so I can’t really describe how devastating it was.

John became close to his ‘son’ Tyler, seeing him regularly and even spent £15,000 on maintenance and legal fees for custody battles (Picture: Reported Missing / BBC)

When John discovered the news, he was heartbroken and said: ‘It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through in my life.’ (Picture: Reported Missing / BBC)

‘It’s a completely horrible feeling. I still see his little face sometimes in my memory and that sort of brings me down a little bit.’

Hardy eventually confessed to the police saying what started out as a petty lie spiralled out of control.

She said: ‘It started off as a little lie and it got bigger and bigger and bigger, and it got to the point where I thought ‘I’ve got to stop this its not fair”. I felt pressure to tell him. But I couldn’t, it would break his heart.’

John has since written a letter to the little boy’s real parents with a phone number in hopes that he’ll hear from them one day (Picture: Reported Missing / BBC)

Hardy pleaded guilty to fraud and perverting course of justice and was sentenced to two years in prison in April this year.

John has since written a letter to the little boy’s real parents with a phone number in hopes that he’ll hear from them one day.

He wrote: ‘It has been the biggest shock of my life finding out that he was not my son I can’t describe how devastated I was and I don’t think I’ll ever get over this. You must be smashing parents to have such a smashing boy.’

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