Re J (A Child) Surrogacy: Adoption Order [2025] EWHC 2960

Re J (A Child) Surrogacy: Adoption Order [2025] EWHC 2960 is a cautionary tale of ‘what can go wrong when strangers who meet through social media to bring a child into the world through surrogacy and when one or more of the parties take risks around the circumstances of conception’ - Henke J.

Amanda Jepson acted for the local authority who were intervenors, up to the final hearing in this matter.

The case involved a DIY insemination plan conceived between strangers who met through social media chat rooms on the topic of surrogacy. The surrogate and would be parents signed up to an agreement that the surrogate would not have sexual intercourse with anyone else during the insemination period; an agreement the surrogate did not keep to.

The baby was then handed over to the parents who eventually realised the baby could not be the Father’s biological child. The would be parents then set about to deceive the court through false DNA testing and were eventually “found out” through forensic DNA testing.

It was perhaps understandable, given that they loved the child and wanted to do everything to ensure the child stayed in their care, which the child did, albeit at the end of very protracted proceedings, under an adoption order, rather than a parental order which was the order they had first applied for. 

Re J (A Child) Surrogacy: Adoption Order [2025] EWHC 2960 judgment 

5th Jan 2026

Amanda Jepson

Call 2005