Woman told her partner she had sold their two children when she had never given birth

| Freelance News Reporter Published October 3, 2026 3:11pm Updated October 3, 2026 3:11pm Awoman used fake photos, ultrasound images and a YouTube video to simulate a baby crying in a scheme to deceive her partner she had been pregnant twice (Picture: Valcic/SOPA Images/Shutterstock) A woman told her partner she had sold their children for £500 when she had never given birth in the first place, a court heard. The fraudulent mother, now in her early 50s, had used a YouTube clip of a crying baby in a voice message as part of an elaborate plan to deceive her partner she had given birth to two children. She also tanned her skin the day she claimed to have given birth to support the ruse. The man in his 30s, never saw the children to whom he was purportedly the father, but claimed to have been sent photographs and an ultrasound scan. He told the court he had been with his partner throughout her first ‘pregnancy’ in 2022 and had felt what he had believed to be her enlarged stomach. Sign up for all of the latest stories Start your day informed with Metro's News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens. However the woman admitted the pregnancy stories were an elaborate lie concocted as revenge for abuse she claimed she and her son had suffered at the hands of her partner. She explained she was menopausal at the time she was supposed to have given birth and produced bank statements showing she had visited a tanning shop the day she was meant to have had her first child. The day the baby was due in May 2023, the couple had an argument and the woman called the police, resulting in the man being arrested and held on remand for several months. She sent messages to her partner’s stepfather to say the baby had been born. A voice message sent to the partner with the sound of a crying baby was in fact a YouTube video in the background, the court was told. The pretending mother then fabricated a second pregnancy, telling her partner she had had a second baby in August 2024, the same month the couple split up. It was only when the man applied to the court believing his children had been sold off that he learnt they had never existed. Mrs Justice Judd, ruling on the case, said it was unlikely the children were ever born, with no evidence of the births on the woman’s phone nor in records with the local authority or police. ‘When the applicant was released from prison the relationship resumed, but he says the respondent told him the baby was with a family member’, she said. ‘She said that the local authority had said he was not permitted to see her but she did show him lots of pictures of the baby.’ The judge said the most likely explanation was that the woman had ‘engaged in a campaign of deception lasting for about three years in order to make the applicant believe that he was going to be, then was, the father of children’. She added: ‘The behaviour was cruel, leading a man and his mother to believe they had children and grandchildren respectively.’ Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page. Arrow MORE: Dad of teen killed in A66 wrong way crash ‘attacked man at son’s funeral’ Arrow MORE: Teacher jailed for sexually abusing boy while he was aged between nine and 12 Arrow MORE: England striker Ivan Toney denies assaulting man at Soho nightclub News Updates Stay on top of the headlines with daily email updates.