Raped wife's secret baby

A woman who claims she was raped by a stranger has lost a legal battle to hide her secret baby from her husband.

She says she was attacked by a during a night out with friends. But eight months after she gave her daughter up for adoption a court has ruled her husband must be told.

The agonising circumstances were set out at the High Court Family Division as the desperate woman, married for 20 years with two children, tried to cover up the truth. The court heard she had somehow managed to keep her pregnancy from her family. When she gave birth she handed her daughter over for adoption, telling council staff she had been raped.

The baby is now living with a foster family but the High Court has insisted the adoption cannot go ahead without the knowledge of the husband.

Waltham Forest council now faces the difficult task of breaking the news to him.

It is even possible the husband is the real father of the baby, although his wife insists a vasectomy operation after the birth of their second child rules that out. The court heard how the heavily pregnant woman approached the council in early February, telling officials the circumstances.

But before the local authority could put the girl up for adoption, they had to be sure the mother's story was true and her husband was not in fact the father.

Lord Justice Thorpe, sitting with Lord Justice Scott Baker, dismissed her appeal against the High Court decision and ruled the husband must be told as soon as possible. The judge said: "There is a human tendency to try and escape the consequences of our errors and sometimes the mental search for an escape route is egocentric and expressed by fantasy.

"The success in giving birth without the knowledge of her husband may have encouraged her to conceive that the severance of her child from her family by public law would succeed. That was never a realistic expectation."

At an earlier hearing, Judge Rex Tedd said he had "no confidence" the woman's account was " accurate, truthful and frank". Lord Justice Thorpe said that, although the baby is up for adoption, such a move may not be necessary once the husband finds out about her.