Convicts 'should be allowed IVF treatment while in jail'

Academics claim that helping prisoners to become parents during their sentences will assist their rehabilitation, as well as respecting their human rights - and those of their partners - to raise a family.

The call follows a landmark legal defeat for the Government last month in which the European Court of Human Rights ruled that it was unlawful to stop jailed murderer Kirk Dickson donating sperm for his wife to use in IVF treatment as it breached their right to marry and raise a family.

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The latest study by researchers at De Montfort University in Leicester will add to the growing pressure on the Ministry of Justice to abandon its ban prohibiting IVF or conjugal visits for inmates in England and Wales, which many now see as unsustainable.

A ministry spokesman confirmed that the IVF ban is "under review" in the wake of the Dickson judgement, and insiders admit the ban is unsustainable.

But officials said the department would resist pressure to introduce conjugal visits - even though they are common in the U.S. and several European states, where inmates are allowed to have sex with visiting spouses or partners.

According to Prison Service the introduction of IVF in jails - dubbed "FedEx Sex" in the United States - could not legally be restricted to male prisoners donating sperm, but female inmates would also have to be allowed access to test-tube treatment to help them become pregnant.

Victoria Knight, a researcher at De Montfort University, said: "Inmates see a child and their role as a parent as a means of helping to rehabilitate and keep them on the straight and narrow.

"It is a subject which has been avoided as it challenges what the purpose of prison is.

"Obviously conjugal visits aren't permitted in this country, whereas in Europe they are widely accepted."

Fellow author Nicky Hudson said research had showed that prisoners were concerned that age could stop them or their partners from having children by they time they are released.

But she conceded: "We are in a very punitive society and giving prisoners rights doesn't seem to fit with that."

Family rights campaigner Helena Hayward of Family and Youth Concern said it was wrong to put the rights of prisoners above the needs of their potential children.

"Playing around with children's lives is unacceptable," she said.

"We seem to have forgotten that offenders are in prison because they have violated society's law.

"While rehabilitation is important, using children in the process is highly irresponsible.

"Innocent children who would have no say about their participation in such an 'experiment' would risk becoming fatherless if it failed.

"Children need two parents who are able to play an active part in their upbringing - and they should both be positive role models."

Last month senior judges in Strasbourg ruled that Kirk Dickson, 35 - serving 15 years for kicking a man to death in a row over a packet of cigarettes - should be allowed to donate sperm for IVF treatment on his wife Lorraine, 49, whom he met through a prison penpal network in 1999 and married while she was serving time for benefits fraud.

The couple argued she would be too old to have his baby by the time he is released, next year at the earliest.

They spent years - and more than £20,000 of taxpayers money - fighting through the British courts and initially lost at the European Court of Human Rights, but a month ago the court's Grand Chamber finally ruled in their favour.

The judgement has far-reaching implications for Government policy, although Dickson himself has been moved to an open prison where he is allowed home visits.

A Prison Service spokeswoman said: "In the light of a recent judgement, the policy on prisoners' access to artificial insemination facilities is currently under review.

"Conjugal visits are not permitted in any prison in England and Wales."

Conjugal visits are common in France, Spain, Russia, Canada and parts of the United States. California recently introduced same-sex conjugal visits in response to new anti-discrimination laws