UK probes sale of twins on Internet

Britain’s Home Secretary (Interior Minister) Jack Straw has described the buying and selling of children over the Internet as "frankly a revolting idea" and pledged to look closely at the case, and the Welsh authorities are also investigating.

"As soon as we became aware of this case we started investigating the circumstances immediately," said Flintshire’s director of children’s services Keith McDonogh.

"We are continuing to make inquiries and have asked for assistance from the National Assembly (of Wales) to establish the status of these children."

The children were given to the Kilshaws in California in December by their mother Tranda Wecker, from St Louis, Missouri. They had paid an Internet firm 8,200 pounds ($12,000) to adopt the twins.

They say they were unaware the Internet firm, Caring Heart Adoption, had already sold Wecker’s twins to a California couple, Richard and Vickie Allen, who had paid 4,000 pounds for them and raised them for two months.

But suffering a change of heart, the girl’s natural mother told the Allens she wanted two days to say farewell to her twins — and then handed them to the Kilshaws in a San Diego hotel.

The British couple, pursued by the Allens, raced across the United States to Arkansas, where adoption laws are more lax. They then flew back to their farmhouse in Wales with the girls.

The two couples were involved in an angry exchange of words in a live television link-up on Tuesday, with the Allens saying: "They have no right to take those kids off us."

Britain’s Sun tabloid further fuelled the controversy on Wednesday, quoting Wecker as alleging the British couple knew she had lied in the adoption papers.

Wecker said the Kilshaws knew she was not a resident of Arkansas, as she claimed, when they adopted the twins in Little Rock. The paper said Arkansas law required Wecker to have been resident for 30 days.

Denying the allegation on GMTV television Alan Kilshaw said: "Certainly we didn’t know anything like that, I am still very sceptical as to whether this is true."

The Kilshaws said as far as they were concerned they had adopted the children and brought them to Britain legally, and intended to apply for British citizenship for them.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office, which is responsible for immigration, said it was waiting to here from U.S. Authorities.

"At the moment it is a matter for the US to decide whether the adoption was legal. Should they decide it was illegal we would look at the situation because it would mean it was illegal here as well," she said.