A High Court judge has raised concerns about "desperate childless parents" being caught up in "strange" baby-selling scams in Africa.
Mr Justice Coleridge said there was evidence that women were going to Nigeria seeking fertility treatment then being sold unwanted babies "for very substantial sums of money" after fraudsters had tricked them into thinking they had become pregnant and given birth.
He said there was more than one case "featuring almost identical facts" before English courts, described the situation as "very serious" and questioned the "lack of involvement" of Nigerian authorities.
The judge raised concerns after awarding one couple who had fallen victim to such a scam, custody of the baby they had believed was theirs.
Mr Justice Coleridge, sitting in the Family Division of the High Court, said the case - involving a Nigerian couple from London - was "very worrying" and gave rise to "very real public interest".
"This is a very serious situation," he said.
"It is not the only case, on almost identical facts, before the courts at the moment. It certainly gives rise to very real public interest, particularly the lack of involvement by the Nigerian authorities."
He went on: "The circumstances in this case are completely unusual, very bizarre and truly worrying."
The court heard that the London couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had fallen victim to an elaborate scam and tricked into paying £6,000 for so-called fertility treatment.
The case reached the courts when social services became suspicious that they were not the baby’s biological parents and took her into care.
When a DNA test revealed the truth, the woman insisted that she had been drugged while undergoing a process that she thought was a genuine birth and believed that the child was hers.
Mr Justice Coleridge concluded that she and her husband were unwitting participants caught up in “the most appalling” scam and that the baby should be returned to them as “special guardians”.
The court heard that the couple, identified only as Mr S, 51, and his wife Mrs S, a 50-year-old teacher, had been “desperate” for a baby.
They travelled to the God’s Gift Maternity Clinic in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 2009 to undergo fertility treatment after failing to conceive at home.
A doctor gave Mrs S "a number of injections and tablets and capsules" and in April 2010, she started to feel the "symptoms of being pregnant" including a bloated stomach and weight gain.
That September, a scan at a UK hospital could detect no pulse or heartbeat from a baby. But Mrs S said her doctor in Nigeria "assured" her that it was not unusual for the baby not to show up on the scan.
"Also, I was reassured by the testimonies of others who had had the treatment before (my sister and a friend)," she added.
The baby was "born" in January 2011. But on the family's return to the UK and following a visit to their local GP, suspicions were raised and the local authority alerted.
DNA tests confirmed that Mr and Mrs S were not the baby's biological parents and the mother was left "stunned", the judge said.
It emerged that the “birth” had been “staged” in Nigeria and that the child had been stolen or bought from unknown parents. Social services then took the baby, identified only as O, into care.
In a statement Mrs S told the court: “In January 2011 during what I perceived to be the birth of O, I recall a doctor inducing labour through intravenous drip and I experienced what was labour, a very traumatic delivery and a baby was presented to me covered in blood as would have been normal in a delivery room.
“I felt all the natural manifestations of labour and delivery and my baby, O, was presented to me in the manner described.”
She added that when O was taken from her, her "whole life was shattered".
“In short, I have been depressed and traumatised. We have struggled to maintain any level of sanity as I am now convinced that I have been a victim of a very serious fraud by those who have exploited my vulnerability and infertility for their own financial gain," she said.
The little girl who will be two in January has remained with foster parents ever since. Now after 18 months she will be returned to the couple
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