https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ent-doctor-told-father-three-adored-boys.html
To summarise this long article,
1. Banker marries a woman back in the 80s and she gave birth to 3 boys.
2. They divorced after 20 years and she gets a payout of 4mill plus the boys private tuition fees and maintenance amounting to 3k p/m.
3. Shortly after, banker is plagued with illness in his 50s where he discovers that not only does he have cystic fibrosis as an inherited condition, it means he's always been infertile
Some extracts of the article that touched a nerve
To summarise this long article,
1. Banker marries a woman back in the 80s and she gave birth to 3 boys.
2. They divorced after 20 years and she gets a payout of 4mill plus the boys private tuition fees and maintenance amounting to 3k p/m.
3. Shortly after, banker is plagued with illness in his 50s where he discovers that not only does he have cystic fibrosis as an inherited condition, it means he's always been infertile
Some extracts of the article that touched a nerve
The divorce was finalised in early 2008 and, in the financial settlement a year later, Kate’s £4 million lump sum included the boys’ private school fees in advance.
Richard complied with Child Support Agency (later the Child Maintenance Service) assessments for maintenance, which amounted to nearly £3,000 a month in the early years following their divorce.
But according to him, that was never enough for Kate.
‘She hounded me for years, employing consultants to investigate my financial affairs and tried to make me pay more,’ he said, his surprisingly youthful features contorted with suppressed rage. ‘Meanwhile, as far as I know, the biological father of the boys has never paid a penny for their upkeep.’
Kate now lives very comfortably in a £1 million seven-bedroom house in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, with a new partner and, when Richard last visited to pick up the boys, there were four cars in the long driveway, including a Range Rover Vogue and a C Class Mercedes Cabriolet.
Still in a daze, Richard walked out of the hospital to the car park and, with shaking hands, composed a text to Kate, telling her what he’d just learned and that he would now have to undergo sperm analysis and an ultrasound scan on his scrotum.
He wrote: ‘I was hoping that you could relieve me of this further indignity by letting me know now if I am the father.
‘I am happy to go along with your advice as to how best to tell the boys. But, if you force me to go through these extra tests then I shall be telling them as I wish.
‘I have no intention of suing you and would like to remain in the boys’ lives.’
Her reply came within minutes, but was somewhat less than categorical: ‘Of course the boys are yours, no matter what the science might suggest.’
Medical tests confirmed that Richard was incapable of producing sperm in the normal way, and DNA tests on the 16-year-old twins proved they were not his sons.
The eldest, however, refused to provide a DNA sample, saying, ‘As far as I’m concerned he’s my dad and that’s that.’
But as the legal case progressed, he also had a devastating message for his father, Richard said.
‘My eldest told me, “Dad, if you sue Mum, I will never speak to you again” – and he hasn’t.’
One of his twins hasn’t been in touch either, but the other – now at university – texts Richard fairly regularly. But, as Richard pointed out, the emotional fallout has gone way beyond himself and the boys.
His 85-year-old mother, Brenda, has Alzheimer’s and when he visits her once or twice a week, she’ll invariably ask, ‘How are the boys?’ Fighting back tears, he said: ‘All these years, she thinks they were her grandchildren. So when she asks, I might say “fine” and change the subject, but I can’t lie to her and invariably I’ll have to tell her I don’t see them any more.
‘Then I have to explain why, and then we both relive the agony together, with me knowing I’ll have to do it all over again the following week. It’s unbearable. My family too have lost the boys, and I feel their loss too.
He finds himself tortured by a flashback when he wakes in the middle of the night – a flashback to a hitherto insignificant moment from years earlier, but now viewed through the prism of suspicion.
The scene is an Indian restaurant which the couple are visiting for the first time – yet the owner recalls seeing Kate on many occasions before, despite her denials.
Then, what to make of the sudden interest in Judaism which Kate declared during her first pregnancy? And her insistence that each of the boys should have a ‘Jewish’ middle name? Richard was curious at the time, but now believes it was a big clue to the identity of the boys’ biological father.
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