High Court ruling on fake-babies deception

The lawyer in a British ‘fake children’ case has said it was an “extraordinary and heartbreaking” matter to have worked on.

Reena Saini, principal solicitor at Chase Morgan, represented ‘John’, who embarked on legal proceedings to establish the whereabouts of two children he believed he had fathered.

A High Court judge ruled in London this week that a woman had carried out an elaborate, two-year deception by convincing 'John' that she had given birth to his two children, none of whom existed.

The ruling in John v Jane [2026] EWHC 415 (Fam) has just been published.

The case was heard before Mrs Justice Judd in the High Court Family Division earlier this year, following an application by the male applicant to locate the children. 

Systematic campaign

The court heard that the woman, referred to as ‘Jane,’ maintained a systematic campaign of deceit against her ex-partner, ‘John’, which included:

• Falsified medical evidence: fabricated ultrasound scans and appearing visibly pregnant,
• Audio and visual fabrications: sending voice notes featuring background audio of a crying baby and sharing photographs of an infant with the man’s mother,
• Financial transfers: accumulating approximately £30,000 from the applicant over two years under the belief that the funds were supporting his children.

The deception escalated when the woman informed the man's family that she had sold the two children to a third party for £500.

This prompted the applicant to initiate family-court proceedings to trace them.

Fabricated

During the proceedings, the woman admitted to the court that she had fabricated the pregnancies and that the children did not exist.

Evidence presented to the court demonstrated physical contradictions in her claims, including bank records showing she was at a tanning salon on the date she claimed to have given birth.

Mrs Justice Judd concluded that the motivation behind the elaborate fabrication likely stemmed from a combination of financial fraud and complex mental-health issues.

The applicant is in his 30s while 'Jane' is in her early 50s. The pair met during the pandemic but always maintained separate homes.

In early May 2023, the parties had an argument at the respondent’s home and she called the police.

Assault allegations

She made allegations of assault. He was arrested and imprisoned on remand for several months.

Two days after he was arrested, the respondent sent a message to his family, announcing the birth of a daughter named ‘Shiloh’.

When the applicant was released from prison the relationship resumed, but the respondent told ‘John’ that the baby was with a family member.

‘Jane’ said that the local authority had said that he was not permitted to see the child but she did show him lots of pictures of the baby.

In the meantime, the respondent told the applicant that she was pregnant again. She said the baby was due in August 2024, and later announced the birth of baby ‘Aryeh’.

The applicant subsequently became very concerned about what had happened to the children and made enquiries with both the local authority and the police.

‘John’ then made an application to the court in October 2024 to ascertain the whereabouts of the children, and for parental responsibility.

The respondent applied for a non-molestation order alleging verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.

Inquiries uncovered that there were no records of the births.

The judge in the case said that the investigation involved detailed interrogation of digital devices.

The respondent did not at first engage with the court process but finally admitted that the children did not exist when a location order was made.

The respondent obtained the baby photographs from the Facebook page of a stranger.

The judge found that the respondent had engaged in a campaign of deception for three years.

Describing it as an “extraordinary case”, the judge said that the respondent fabricated the pregnancies and her behaviour was inexplicable and inexcusable.

The applicant was the victim of a sustained, elaborate, and cruel deceit, the judge said, but a detailed investigation was beyond the scope of her family-division inquiry.

Human cost

Solicitor Reena Saini said that there was a real human cost for her client in believing that he had a child and wanting a relationship with that child.

The case demonstrated the increasing importance of digital evidence in family proceedings, she told the England-and-Wales Law Society Gazette.