Herald Sun, Australia, by Norrie Ross, law reporter, November 19, 2005
A MAN who found he was supporting two children he had not fathered can continue his fight for compensation.
Liam Magill, 54, hugged his current partner after the High Court yesterday granted him special leave to
appeal against a ruling that he was not entitled to compensation.
During arguments in the case Justice Michael Kirby said the issues of parenthood were important in an age
of DNA testing.
In March, the Victorian Court of Appeal stripped Mr Magill of a $70,000 County Court payout from his
ex-wife, Meredith, on a legal technicality.
Mr Magill had said birth certificates shown to him by his ex-wife led him to believe he was the father of
a daughter and son.
However, the appeal judges ruled the certificates only proved children had the surname Magill and his
claim was legally too narrow.
Opposing a grant of special leave yesterday, Fiona McLeod SC, for Meredith Magill, said there was no
evidence Mr Magill relied on the certificates.
But Justice Kirby said Mr Magill was a husband who had fathered another child to his ex-wife.
He had no grounds at the time to worry that he was the father of his other two children, the judge said.
In his lawsuit Mr Magill said DNA tests in 2000 showed two of his three children were fathered by his
ex-wife's secret lover.
He said he had been deceived and suffered psychological and economic loss.
The High Court will hear the case in Canberra next year. Outside court Mr Magill's lawyer, Vivien
Mavropoulos said the issue was very important for the community.
The article contains info about children's identity fraud at The Hospital
for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
December 14, 2002.
Includes interview with employees of Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada who admit they deny children's identity information to husbands/male
partners of mothers who want to hide the real identity of their child because
they had an affair. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of The Child specifically
supports a child's human right to have a relationship with both his/her
biological parents. In addition, this article is proof that The Hospital
for Sick Children ("Sick Kids") supports paternity fraud.
Further "Sick Kids" supports a mother's rights only, which they view,
supersedes 3 other people's rights, namely, the rights of the biological
father, the rights of the mother's male partner/husband and the child's
identity rights.
Up to one in 25 dads could unknowingly
be raising another man's child, UK health researchers estimate.
Increasing use of genetic testing for medical and legal reasons means
Read More ..uples are discovering the biological proof of who fathered the child.
The Liverpool John Moores University team reached its estimate based on
research findings published between 1950 and 2004.
The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Biological father
Professor Mark Bellis and his team said that the implications of so-called
paternal discrepancy were huge and largely ignored, even though the
incidence was increasing.
In the US, the number of paternity tests increased from 142,000 in 1991 to
310,490 in 2001.
An adulterous Spanish woman who conceived three children with her
lover has been ordered to pay £177,000 in 'moral damages' to her
husband.
The cuckolded man had believed that the three children were his until
a DNA test eventually proved they were fathered by another man.
The husband, who along with the other man cannot be named for legal
reasons to protect the children's identities, suspected his second wife
may have been unfaithful in 2001.
BEAUTIFUL women who have affairs can now blame it on their sex hormones.
Women with higher levels of oestradiol, a form of oestrogen, not only
look and feel more attractive, they are also more likely to cheat on their
partners, a new study has found.
One-night-stands are not what interest these flirtatious females, who
tend to have bigger breasts, relatively small waists and symmetrical faces
as a result of their high levels of oestradiol.
Rather, they adopt a strategy of serial monogamy, say the researchers,
led by Kristina Durante of the University of Texas.
Paternity Fraud & the Criminal Code of Canada
Paternity fraud: Is it or should it be a criminal offence under the Criminal Code of Canada?
Feminist organizations including the National Organization of Women (NOW)
has objected to legislation that requires the courts to vacate paternity
judgments against men who arent, in fact, the father.
Think about that. NOW wants some man, any man, to make child support
payments. The woman who doesnt even know who the father is, should not be
held responsible for her actions, is a sweet, loving, blameless mother who
seeks only to care for her child and if naming some schmuck as father who
never saw her before in his life helps her provide for the innocent babe,
well then, that's fine.
Last year, more than 3,000 DNA paternity tests were commissioned by
Australian men, and in almost a quarter of those cases, the test revealed that not only had their partners been
unfaithful, but the children they thought were theirs had been sired by someone else.Read More ..
The fairytale that saw Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott reunited with the son he thought he had given up for
adoption 27 years ago, ABC sound-recordist Daniel O'Connor, ended this week when DNA tests confirmed another man had
fathered Mr O'Connor.
The revelations were devastating for all involved, not least Mr O'Connor.
Still reeling from the emotional reunion with his mother, Kathy Donnelly, and Mr Abbott a few months ago, a simple
test of truth has thrown the trio into disarray a situation familiar to thousands of other Australians.
Paternity testing in Australia is a burgeoning industry.
The simplicity of the test cells are collected from a mouth swab grossly underestimates the seriousness of the
situation.
Proposed new laws will make it easier for fathers to recover child maintenance
payments if DNA testing reveals that they are not the child's father.
The Family Law Amendment Bill 2005 allows people who wrongly believed they
were the parent of a child to recover any child maintenance paid or property
transferred under an order of a court under the Family Law Act 1975 .
"The bill is intended to make it easier for people who find themselves in
this position to take recovery action without the need to initiate separate
proceedings for an order from a court of civil jurisdiction, such as a State,
Local or Magistrates court," Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said.
An acid sense of betrayal has been gnawing at Damon Adams since a DNA test showed that he is not the father of a
10-year-old girl born during his former marriage.
"Something changes in your heart," says Adams, 51, a dentist in Traverse City, Mich. "When she walks through the
door, you're seeing the product of an affair."
But Michigan courts have spurned the DNA results Adams offered in his motions to stop paying $23,000 a year in child
support. Now, Adams is lobbying the state Legislature for relief and joining other men in a national movement
against what they call "paternity fraud." Read More ..
