Benita and Mark Cutter were desperate for a baby and forked out more than £8,000 in faked expenses to make their dream come true.
The couple from Humberside had been married for about four years. It was already known that Benita,49, was unable to conceive and during an earlier marriage she and her then husband adopted two children who are now teenagers.
They advertised on the internet for a surrogate mum and were contacted by Brown. The couple travelled to Scotland where they stayed at Brown’s home in Tain in the Highlands.
For three days 32-year-old Mr Cutter provided a daily sample of his sperm and Brown and her then partner claimed to be using it to artificially inseminate her.
The couple agreed to reimburse Brown for her expenses and other costs and paid £8,307.00 into her bank account even coughing up for maternity wear, baby clothes and travel expenses and paid more than originally agreed when Brown said she had lost her job sue to ‘complications’ with the pregnancy. In the coming months they were sent scan pictures of their ‘child’ and kept up to date with Brown supposed hospital check-ups and visits to ante-natal classes.
But the cruellest trick came just before the ‘birth’.
The Cutters were told Brown had been involved in a car accident - was in an induced coma -and had lost the much wanted baby, she even went as far as to send a picture of the baby she claimed was taken shortly after it’s death on a mobile phone.
But the couple thought that the child in the photograph looked asleep, rather than dead, and the material in which it was wrapped did not look like hospital issue.
They contacted the hospital Brown was supposed to be in, to learn that they had no record of her.
The twisted crime was revealed at Inverness Sheriff court where Brown admitted the fraud.
Fiscal Roderick Urquhart:said: “Everything else had been tried by the couple and surrogacy was their last option. It appears they were desperate for a child and perhaps consequently were a little gullible.
“They came into contact with Brown via an advert they had placed on the internet seeking the assistance of a surrogate. Brown offered her services and in due course the Cutters travelled to Tain where they met both Brown and her then partner.
“As the ‘pregnancy’ progressed the Cutters were sent what purported to be scan images of the unborn child and were told of Brown’s visits to ante-natal classes etc.
“It was established that all the Cutters had been told was false; Brown had never been pregnant; she had not attended any ante-natal classes; had not been in a car crash; had not delivered a dead child; had not lost any wages; and had not incurred the expenses she had claimed and obtained from the Cutters.
“It should be noted that as well as the “expenses” paid to Brown, the Cutters had incurred other costs in anticipation of having a child. “They had also told Mrs Cutter’s other children about the surrogate pregnancy and they also had been looking forward to having a sibling.“It would appear that the financial loss incurred by the Cutters paled almost into insignificance compared with the heartbreak, anguish and despair they suffered when they realised not only that they were not to become parents, but that they had been the victims of a calculated and callous fraud.”Brown had originally appeared with a co-accused her then lesbian partner 44-year-old Karen Galashan, but the charges against her were dropped due to insufficient evidence.
Sheriff Margaret Neilson deferred sentence until February 12 for a background report on Brown – who was jailed last year for shooting her neighbour in the head with an air rifle over a row about gulls.
UK Mirror
