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A family dispute has turned into an extraordinary High Court investigation after a judge concluded that a woman was more likely to have fabricated two pregnancies and the existence of two children than to have secretly given birth to them.
The case, John v Jane [2026] EWHC 415 (Fam) (a copy of decision may be read/downloaded below), required the High Court to determine whether the two children at the centre of the proceedings ever exist?
Mrs Justice Judd described the case as “most extraordinary”, ultimately finding that the woman, anonymised as Jane, had engaged in a sustained and elaborate deception involving her former partner, his mother and his closest friend.
The judgment was handed down on 26 February 2026 but was only recently made public. A pregnancy, an ultrasound and a baby who could not be found
The story began in late 2022 when Jane told John that she was pregnant. According to evidence before the court, Jane sent John an ultrasound image and, as the pregnancy progressed, appeared to become visibly pregnant. John genuinely believed that he was going to become a father. The alleged child was eventually said to have been born in May 2023.
Two days after John had been arrested following an argument with Jane, a message was sent to his stepfather announcing the birth of a baby girl named Shiloh Rose. Jane also sent John’s mother a voice message containing the sound of a crying baby and subsequently supplied photographs of a baby girl whom she said was Shiloh. But John never actually met the child.
Jane told him that the baby was being cared for by relatives and suggested that social services were involved. At various points, she maintained that he could not see his daughter because of restrictions supposedly imposed by social workers.
Despite never seeing the child, John continued to believe that she existed. Then came a second pregnancy. The extraordinary story did not end with Shiloh. In 2024, Jane told John that she was pregnant again. After another argument, John’s mother came to collect him and later told the court that Jane appeared visibly pregnant.
Jane subsequently announced that she had given birth to a boy, whom she named Aryeh. Once again, photographs of the supposed newborn were provided to John and his family.
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The pattern was remarkably similar: a pregnancy, a reported birth, photographs of a baby and explanations as to why the alleged father could not see the child. John continued sending money to Jane for herself and the supposed children. According to the judgment, he provided approximately £30,000 over two years.
At one stage, Jane reportedly told him that she had “sold the children for £500”, adding another bizarre dimension to an already extraordinary series of events. The father went looking for his children. Eventually, John became seriously concerned about the whereabouts of the two children. He made enquiries with the local authority and police before applying to the court in October 2024 to establish where the children were and to obtain parental responsibility.
It was at this point that the case took an extraordinary turn. Jane, through her lawyers, told the court that she and John did not have any children together. She denied having given birth to the children and said that she had suffered two miscarriages.
John initially refused to accept that the children did not exist. He and his mother remained convinced that they had seen Jane visibly pregnant.
The court was therefore faced with two extraordinary possibilities: that two children had genuinely been born and somehow remained hidden from their alleged father and the authorities, or that an elaborate deception had been maintained for years.
The evidence became a forensic investigation
The case required the court to examine a collection of evidence. This included photographs, messages, voice recordings, medical records, bank statements, police information, local-authority enquiries, digital searches, deleted messages and metadata.
Crucially, there were no records from the local authority or police concerning the supposed children, and Jane’s medical records contained no evidence of antenatal care consistent with the pregnancies she had described.
The digital evidence also became significant. As Jane’s legal team noted, what began as a private family dispute had effectively become a forensic investigation into modern forms of deception, with screenshots, social-media images, voice notes, search histories and metadata all requiring careful examination.
Judge finds the pregnancies were more likely fabricated
After considering the evidence as a whole, Mrs Justice Judd concluded that it was more likely that Jane had fabricated the pregnancies and the children than that she had genuinely given birth. The judge was careful, however, to emphasise the legal standard under which she was making that finding.
There was no single piece of evidence that conclusively established what had happened. Rather, the conclusion was reached on the civil standard of proof, not the criminal standard.
The judgment did not amount to a criminal conviction for fraud or any other offence. Instead, the Family Division was required to determine the facts necessary to resolve the family proceedings. The judge found that Jane had “lied repeatedly and about multiple events” and concluded that John had been the victim of a “sustained and elaborate campaign of deceit.”
A mystery the court could not completely solve
Even after reaching its conclusion, the court could not determine precisely why Jane had created the deception.
The judge said the conduct was inexplicable and inexcusable but did not reach a definitive conclusion about Jane’s motivation.
Financial fraud was identified as a possibility, particularly because Jane had received a considerable amount of money from John. But the court stopped short of finding that this was definitively the reason for the deception.
FULL DECISION MAY BE READ/DOWNLOADED BELOW:
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