London - A woman who admitted selling her unborn baby to two couples over the Internet was jailed for two years on Friday.
Moira Greenslade, from Keighley in northern England, made £2 500 (about R30 000) after agreeing to give up her child to the couples she contacted though a surrogacy website.
She pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to three charges of obtaining money by deception and three offences under the Adoption Act.
Judge Richard Henriques said Greenslade's behaviour had undermined the role of the adoption services in the country.
"Right-thinking members of the public will feel outrage at your cynical and callous fraud," he told her.
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"Those couples who desperately seek a child are frequently prepared to go to extraordinary ends to meet their ambitions.
"Their hopes and prayers render them vulnerable to opportunists and fraudsters such as yourself," he added.
Prosecutors said that in February last year, Greenslade agreed to sell her baby for £9 000 to a Scottish couple, Mark and Michelle Johnson.
They gave her an initial payment of £1 500.
She later obtained £1 000 from Peter and Sharon Robinson-Hudson, from Wrexham, north Wales, in a similar agreement, worth £5 000.
She cancelled both agreements shortly before the baby girl was born, and the Robinson-Hudsons complained to police. Greenslade was arrested on December 11, soon after giving birth in Southampton, southern England.
Police discovered she had signed an agreement to sell her child to a third couple, Janet and Andrew Rashley from Southampton. They were at the hospital for the birth but had not paid Greenslade anything.
Mrs Rashley told GMTV that while the couple were holding the baby for the first time, "the social worker came in and said that she needed to have a word with us, and it was then that we found out that there were other couples involved.
"We went in and we asked Moira what was actually going on and she just literally didn't know what to say to us," she said. - Sapa-AP
- This article was originally published on page 4 of Saturday Star on May 22, 2004
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