Court allows gay sperm donor to spend time with his kids by lesbian mum

LONDON - A gay sperm donor in Britain has won a custody battle brought about by a lesbian who had his children, after the court ruled that he can spend 152 days of the year with them.

The mother and her civil partner had hoped to overturn an earlier ruling allowing the 51-year-old company director to have his son and daughter, now ten and seven, living with him for almost half the year.

The children were conceived by artificial insemination after the man put an advertisement in the Gay Times saying he wanted to become a father but explaining he required “little involvement” in the children’s upbringing.

The lesbian couple, who were happy for the father to have contact with the children, have been their main carers since birth and considered themselves their parents.

The two women accused the father of being domineering and controlling and also claimed that he favoured his son over his daughter when he bought the boy a puppy.

But the Appeal Court was told that the father now played a central role in the children’s lives, including taking them to doctors’ appointments and paying their school fees.

Lady Justice Black ruled that the boy and girl should live with the father for 152 days of the year, and she urged the parents, who cannot be named, to “put aside their differences” for the sake of their children.

“The adults may be very concerned about issues of status such as who could and should be classed as ‘the parents’ but those matters are not likely to be of particular concern to the children,” the Daily Mail quoted her as saying. If the adults do not manage to resolve things by communicating with each other, the children inevitably suffer, and the adults may also pay the price when the children are old enough to be aware of what has been going on.

“It is a tremendous privilege to be involved in bringing up a child,” she added. (ANI)