A couple in their 70s has been granted a court order to become the legal parents of a 14-month-old surrogate baby boy - despite a judge's concerns they could die before the child reaches 18.
The husband and wife, both aged 72, applied to the courts for a parental order in July after the baby was born six months earlier to a surrogate in California using the husband's sperm and a donor egg.
In a written judgment handed down last month in the family division of the High Court, it said the application by the couple - referred to only as ‘Mr and Mrs K’ - was allowed on March 28.
Mrs Justice Knowles said that she had made her judgment public because it raised an ‘important welfare issue and offers some advice for those who may, in future, engage in a foreign or other surrogacy arrangement’.
She added that it was an ‘undeniable fact’ that when the child - referred to as ‘B’ - started primary school, Mr and Mrs K would be both aged 76.
