Family Division lifts ban on DNA test result showing 12-year-old did not father child
Schoolboy Alfie Patten, who made headlines earlier this year when he was reported to have got his girlfriend pregnant aged just 12, is not the baby’s father after all.
In February this year a media furore broke out after The Sun reported that Alfie’s 15-year-old girlfriend Chantelle Stedman had given birth to daughter, Maisie. The case led to calls for better sex education in England, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in western Europe.
DNA tests have now confirmed that another boy, Tyler Barker, aged 15 is the baby’s father.
An injunction imposed by the Family Division in the case was modified yesterday by Mrs Justice Eleanor King to allow publication of the information that Tyler, not Alfie, was the father of Maisie after East Sussex County Council failed in a bid to keep the information secret. The Judge also refused the Local Authority’s attempt to remove photographs of the Children from the public domain.
Please click here for the 5RB case report and full judgment.
5RB‘s Matthew Nicklin (instructed by Farrer & Co) appeared for News Group Newspapers Ltd publishers of The Sun and News of the World and Adam Wolanski appeared at an earlier stage in the proceedings for MGN Ltd publishers of the Daily Mirror.
Links
- The Sun to set up trust fund in Alfie Patten case – Media Guardian
- Boy aged 12 did not father baby – BBC News
- Alfie Patten is not the father of Chantelle Stedman’s baby, DNA test reveals – The Times
- Dad’s Not Alfie – The Sun
- DNA test wrecks Alfie Patten’s claim he was dad at 13 – Daily Mirror
- DNA tests prove Alfie, 13, is not father – The Guardian
- Alfie Patten ‘distressed’ to discover he is not the father – Daily Telegraph