Judge to rule on Internet babies


The Kilshaws say their lives have been ruined

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The immediate future of the twin babies adopted over the Internet is due to be decided at a court in Britain on Tuesday.

A British judge is due to rule who will look after them until a permanent decision is taken on their future.

Social workers took the six-month-old twins into emergency custody last week and want them to be made wards of court.

But the British couple who adopted the girls from the U.S. say they will keep up their battle for custody.

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A California couple who also paid to adopt the girls is challenging the adoption -- as is their birth mother, who now says she wants them back.

Alan and Judith Kilshaw are due to appear before the High Court, sitting in Birmingham, where they will fight an application from their local council which wants to make the girls wards of court.

CNN's Tom Mintier says it is possible the birth mother may make her way to Birmingham and appear in court.

He reports that Tranda Wecker, 28, says she gave the twins up at the lowest point in her life and now wants them back.

The twins were taken from the Kilshaws' home in Buckley, north Wales, on Thursday, by Flintshire County Council who served an emergency protection order on the couple.

Leaving their home on Monday to travel to the hearing, Mrs Kilshaw, 47, said: "I am still strong and still together and we are still fighting for our children because they are our children.

"But I'm upset at the thought I may never see them again. I might miss their growing up, miss when they turn 18 and when they get married.

"I am hopeful that they will still be with us and if they are not with us physically, they will be with us in our thoughts."


Belinda and Kimberley are being looked after by foster parents

The couple and their sons, James, seven and Rupert, four, left their seven-bedroom farmhouse on Monday afternoon.

The outcry over the case has provoked the Department of Health to speed up the passage of new laws protecting babies being adopted abroad and brought back to Britain.

Health minister John Hutton has written to the UK's Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) warning that they could be breaking the law if they had illegal adoption Web sites online.

Under UK law, only local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies approved by the Health Secretary are allowed to advertise children for adoption.

"What we are trying to do is be helpful to the Internet Service Providers," he said. "We have had very clear legal advice about the implications of the Adoption Act in terms of Internet Service Providers and we have simply tried to relay that information."

The UK Department of Health also announced that under new laws, due to be in place by April, parents adopting children from abroad without proper approval face up to three months in prison and a fine of �600.

The regulations aim to make it an offence for parents to adopt abroad unless a home study report has been completed and a local authority or approved voluntary adoption agency has deemed the parents suitable.

UK Health Secretary Alan Milburn said: "Adoption is a service for children. It is not a service for adults ... The interests of the child will always come first. And that means children from other countries as well as our own."

The Kilshaws claim their lives have been ruined by the media interest in their case, which they say has turned them into hate figures.

The scandal blew up last week when it was disclosed that the Kilshaws had paid �8,000 ($12,000) to adopt the babies through an Internet adoption agency in California after the twins had already been sold to another couple.

A Californian couple, Richard and Vickie Allen, claim they gave the adoption agency $6,000 for the twins and had already raised them for two months before they were allegedly duped into handing them back to their natural mother, Tranda Wecker.

Wecker then handed the girls over to the Kilshaws, but has since appeared on U.S. television to say she wants them back.