Men paid maintenance for children that they didn't father
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
A total of £4,065 was handed over last year before the mistake was highlighted, Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie said.
Last month it emerged Alfie Patten, who was reported to have fathered a child when he was 12 years old, was not the baby's father. DNA tests have shown he did not make his 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant.
Ms Ritchie said she knew of five cases in which men who were not the biological fathers paid maintenance. She was responding to an Assembly written question from Tommy Burns.
"In each case the amounts paid were reimbursed," she said.
"Recovery of monies was not sought from the parents with care involved. The welfare of the child/children is always considered in such cases.
"No compensation was paid as the division acted in good faith and the alleged non-resident parents had initially accepted paternity."
Alfie, now 13, from Eastbourne in East Sussex, told a national newspaper in February that he believed he had made his 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant.
But the tests established in March that another boy from Eastbourne is the father of Chantelle Stedman's baby.
The case prompted a moral debate about sex education for young people.
The £4,065 collected from non-fathers compared to £22.8 million total payments of maintenance in Northern Ireland.
Mr Burns said: "Some of the solicitors involved in these cases, before there's any payment they ask that their client has a DNA test.
"If you have been in a stable relationship and it has broken up in most cases there's no doubt that he would be the father, in many cases they are denying the impossible."
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