Boy can have two fathers, says judge

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In today's case, the country's most senior family court judge, Sir Mark Potter, decided that a man who brought up the boy believing him to be his own child was entitled to parental rights - even though he has turned out not be the father.

The ruling means that the child now effectively has two fathers and that the person who raised him, referred to only as Mr A, has the same rights as the boy's biological parent.

The decision came despite an appeal by the boy's mother for Mr A to be refused parental rights because of his allegedly "officious and controlling manner" and was taken after Sir Mark accepted that the man had a "genuine and legitimate" right to continue raising the child.

In what appears likely to set a benchmark for future cases, the judge added that it was possible for a child to have any number of parents and that parental rights should be determined both by the role a person played in a child's life and by biology.

"There is no limit upon the number of persons who may have parental responsibility for the same child at the same time", Sir Mark, the President of the Family Division, said.

The boy was born in 2002 soon after the couple formed their relationship. It was only after the pair broke up in 2004 that the mother told him that the boy, then aged two, might not be his.