Baby for sale scam

A pregnant woman used the internet to trick childless couples into handing over thousands of pounds to buy her baby, a court heard today.

Moira Greenslade exploited the vulnerability of desperate would-be parents to give her cash.

Today the mother of two was warned she faces jail after pleading guilty to three charges of deception and three offences under the Adoption Act.

She spent money she was given by one couple on her six-year-old son and family holidays, only to cancel her arrangement with them little more than a week before her baby girl was due to be born.

Outside court Chief Inspector Mick Hopwood, the senior officer who investigated the case, said the deceived couples were the victims, adding: "This was an exploitation of these people's expectations."

Greenslade, 33, profited by £2,500 after offering to give up her baby to couples she contacted through the internet, magistrates in Bingley, West Yorkshire, heard. She also admitted placing ads on a website offering the same baby for adoption.

Yasmin Pitter, prosecuting, said Greenslade made a £9,000 surrogacy agreement with Scottish couple Mark and Michelle Johnson, who had suffered 13 miscarriages and eight failed attempts at IVF, in February last year. She received £1,500 from them before cancelling the deal.

She obtained £1,000 from Peter and Sharon Robinson-Hudson, from Wrexham, in a £5,000 surrogacy agreement last August. But Greenslade, from Keighley, West Yorkshire, sent them an e-mail stating that she was cancelling the agreement because she did not want to see the child go into care.

The couple complained to police and Greenslade was arrested in hospital in December on suspicion of obtaining money by deception, soon after giving birth to a daughter who was taken into care.

Present at the hospital was a third couple who signed an £ 8,000 agreement with Greenslade after she placed an internet ad offering her baby for adoption.

The case was adjourned to crown court for sentencing.