Queen and the baby smuggler

An "archbishop" accused of baby-smuggling once met the Queen. Gilbert Deya, who runs a church in Peckham, is wanted by Kenyan police over an alleged racket in which babies are "miraculously born" to sterile women and then transported back to Britain.

Deya, a former beggar boy who is now a millionaire, claims the babies are a "gift from God". Today Kenyan authorities began extradition proceedings to make him face court over the allegations.

Meanwhile, an Evening Standard investigation has found how:

Today Buckingham Palace distanced itself from Deya's attempts to link himself to the royal family.

The photographs with royalty - which Deya uses on his website and in promotional material - were taken during an official engagement at a theatre in Catford in 2002.

A spokeswoman for the Palace said it was "unfortunate" if Deya suggested he had any link to the Queen. He is accused of being part of a child-smuggling racket operating across Britain, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya.

It is feared that babies have been snatched from Nairobi's Pumwani Maternity Hospital - which is under investigation following the disappearance of dozens of infants - before being trafficked elsewhere.

Deya, 52, is also facing a Charity Commission investigation into his church, Gilbert Deya Ministries, which was registered as a charity in Britain in

1996. It faces the threat of being closed down or having its bank accounts frozen.

Deya's link to the alleged child-smuggling conspiracy first emerged in 1999 when his wife Mary said she had "reanimated" a foetus lost in the womb of a post-menopausal woman for 14 years. That woman, Eddah Odera, 56, married to Michael, went on to "give birth" to a further 10 children at Kenyan hospitals.

The claims helped Deya expand his following in Britain to more than 34,000 people - with churches in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham as well as Kenya, India and Zimbabwe.

His son, Amos, is a pastor at the Birmingham branch. As the church expanded it produced merchandise based around the "miracles", including magazines and DVDs, which have been sold on to churchgoers.

Followers are told to hand over "tithes" worth 10 per cent of their income, and London businesspeople have been persuaded to send money to the socalled miracle children.

One believer, Islington-based businessman Siaw Fripong, sent ?100 a month to Kenya after being persuaded to part with the money. Today he said: "Occasionally I do send money to Mr Odera to help with the upkeep of the children, as their godfather. The babies were not stolen, they were an act of God.

"When these miracles came to our attention four years ago, no one came forward to say the babies belonged to anyone else."

Deya has also exhibited the children on his website and at religious rallies in Kenya - filmed for use in his DVDs - to excite crowds of thousands drawn by his reputation as a miracle worker. At the mass prayer sessions Deya tells how women have become pregnant "by the grace of God" under his ministry, and boasts that the mothers had been sterile, postmenopausal or the subject of negative antenatal scans.

Persuaded by such rhetoric, at least three British women have travelled to Kenya to have "miracle babies" - and a further two claim they are expecting following Deya's intervention. One "miracle" child returned here has already been taken into care by British authorities after tests revealed its DNA did not match that of either alleged parent.

Deya's fame has, meanwhile, allowed him to amass three homes, a private jet, an impressive wardrobe of sharp suits and a armoured Mercedes with personalised number plates.

His church has bought a £1 million headquarters in Peckham and an impressive disused church in Liverpool. He also has his own large house in the Mountain View area of Nairobi.

But his empire may now crumble. Five defendants - including Mrs Deya, 45 - appeared in court in Nairobi on Monday facing charges over the alleged child-trafficking ring. They were bailed to return to court in November.

All 11 of Odera's children have been taken into care by Kenyan police, a further nine were seized at the Deyas' Kenyan home, and another baby is understood to have been confiscated from British citizen Miriam Nyeko.

One of the children used by Deya, a four-year-old boy, has already been reunited with his real parents. And Mrs Deya's children are also caught up in the scandal. Documents seen by the Evening Standard show how she claims to have given birth to three children - including a set of twins - despite being told by London hospitals that she was not pregnant with them.

Mrs Deya went to Mayday Hospital in Croydon in 1999, where a consultant examined her and told her she was not pregnant.

A week later she went to Kenya and "gave birth" to a son within a week. Last year, after a scan at Blackheath Hospital revealed no sign of pregnancy, Mrs Deya claims to have given birth to twins within two months.

It is alleged Mrs Deya took at least one child from Pumwani on 5 February this year and has since passed her off as one of the "miracle twins".

Deya maintains all the children are miracle births, irrespective of DNA results, and accuses those who doubt him of "wickedness". Attempts to reach him for comment failed but the managing director of his church, Chris Meregini, said: "Just because people do not understand how these babies could have been born does not mean anything wrong has been done.

"These babies are miracles born through God."