Mother jailed over internet baby sale
By Paul Stokes May 22, 2004 Telegraph.co.uk

An unmarried mother who offered her unborn baby to three childless couples over the internet was jailed for two years yesterday.

Moira Greenslade, 33, was described as a "dishonest predator" whose actions had undermined the regulation of the adoption process in Britain.

She accepted £6,000 from two couples who answered an advertisement on a US surrogacy website.

Greenslade later cancelled the agreements and entered into a new deal to sell the same child to another couple for £8,000.

She was arrested in a hospital bed in Southampton immediately after giving birth to a daughter last December as the third couple waited outside to take the baby home.

Janet and Andy Rashley were allowed to cradle the girl for a few moments before she was taken from their arms by police and put into care by social services.

Greenslade had acted as a surrogate mother 18 months previously, Leeds Crown Court was told, when she "sold" a son to another couple through the surrogacy agency Cots. Greenslade, who has a six-year-old autistic son, also donated 12 eggs to a clinic in Sheffield last year.

Greenslade, from Keighley, West Yorks, admitted three charges of deception and three breaches of adoption law when she appeared before Bingley magistrates in March.

Sentencing her yesterday Mr Justice Henriques said: "Those couples who desperately seek a child are frequently prepared to go to extraordinary ends. Their hopes and prayers render them vulnerable to opportunists and fraudsters such as yourself.

"Right-thinking members of the public would feel outrage at your cynical and callous fraud. Your behaviour has cheated your victims and undermined the regulation of the adoption process."

The judge said he accepted that Greenslade had intended to hand over the baby to the Rashleys.

But he added: "There was a time when simultaneously the three couples thought they were going to adopt the same child. She knew the other two agreements were in place when she agreed the third deal with the Rashleys."

Greenslade, a former nanny, placed an advert on Surromomsonline in January last year offering to act as a surrogate mother.

The first couple to make contact, Mark and Michelle Johnson from Scotland, were desperate to have a child after 13 miscarriages and eight failed IVF attempts.

After entering into an agreement with them, she placed another internet advertisement offering her baby for adoption and was contacted by the Rashleys, from Southampton, and Peter and Sharon Robinson-Hudson, from Wrexham.

The court heard Greenslade received monthly payments from the three couples. Each was unaware of the other two.

Police were called in after she cancelled deals with the Johnsons and Robinson-Hudsons before she was traced to the Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton as she gave birth. DNA tests revealed that none of the three men was the baby's father.

Michelle Colborne, defending, said Greenslade had hidden the pregnancy from her parents and looking after an autistic son had put her under enormous added strain. Miss Colborne added: "She is thoroughly ashamed of herself."