When a marriage breaks down, the best both parties can hope for is that their children don't suffer as a result. But what if a husband finds out the daughter he has raised as his own was conceived when his wife had a secret fling? He might feel hurt, but should that damage his relationship with the child he was so close to?
Paternity fraud is a hot issue, with pressure groups such as Fathers for Life campaigning for compulsory DNA testing of children at birth. Of the claims made to the Child Support Agency by women, 19 per cent identify the wrong man as the father. It is not known what proportion of claims is deliberately fraudulent. It is a crime to supply false information about paternity to the CSA, but no women have ever been prosecuted. Worldwide, it's estimated that between one in 10 and one in seven children are being raised by men who have no idea the offspring is not theirs.
Mark Webb went through an acrimonious divorce from Lydia Chapman after a DNA test showed her daughter Elspeth was fathered by another man, Allen Mottram. Webb wants damages, as if to reimburse him for the costs of raising Elspeth for 17 years, but now his only option is the European Court of Human Rights as the chances of success under UK law are small.
But is it about money or hurt feelings? The victim seems to be Elspeth, who claims that after the man whom she'd grown up calling Dad found that he'd been lied to, he distanced himself from her and now their relationship has broken down.
Relationships between fathers and daughters are like fragile plants. Although I didn't have a close emotional relationship with my own father, he was a really important person in my life, and it wouldn't have made any difference if we had not been related by blood. He raised me, as Mark Webb raised Elspeth.
Surely Mark's legal action is a form of revenge against the man his wife decided to have sex with. It's about virility. Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen, says men were monogamous when they were hunter-gatherers and had to source food for the family. Agricultural skills and increased wealth meant they could sleep around: procreation doesn't take much energy. Ridley claims that women originally were monogamous and cared for children, but gradually that has changed. They are quite likely to seek a better gene pool, hence paternity fraud and the growing number of single mothers. Men have become disposable.
The London School of Economics found that mistrust over paternity is an important factor in the breakdown of marriage. Legislating to make fathers pay for their children via the CSA has not been successful, with a 50 per cent success rate and £4bn uncollected to date. Now, the CSA is being replaced by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.
Mark Webb's case highlights an unfortunate trend, which is to talk about children in terms of fiscal cost. Poor parenting skills mean that thousands of children are in care or referred to social services. Let's get back to basics. Being a good parent isn't a matter of blood: the rights and interests of children should always be paramount, even when relationships fail, and the judges were right to rule that Mark Webb's grievances are best not settled in court. Being a good dad isn't about DNA.
Fare enough: Celebrity chefs rustle up the best ratings
Channel 4 might be having a funding crisis, but it is easily the most confident of the mainstream channels at the moment when it comes to projecting a consistently entertaining brand. 'Big Brother' staggers to the end of its natural life, but the new Big Food Fight season has got off to a roaring success with Heston Blumenthal's three-parter 'Big Chef Takes on Little Chef'.
The series built from 3.2 million and a 13 per cent audience share last Monday to an impressive four million viewers (17 per cent share) by Wednesday at 9pm. ITV remains in the doldrums, managing a pitiful 1.4 million viewers and a 6 per cent share in the same slot for its docudrama about the de Menezes shooting.
With specials featuring Gordon (campaigning to get us to eat locally), Hugh (back at war with Tesco over its chickens) and Jamie Oliver (promoting British pork), Channel 4 is proving that our love affair with super-chefs shows no signs of diminishing. Heston's success is more remarkable because he's not a television natural. He was helped by colourful characters in the Little Chef workforce, rather than "taste explosions" and talking toilets.
An end to mixed wards in sight
A leaked memo shows the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson is furious the NHS is dragging its feet over mixed-sex wards.
For 12 years Labour has promised to end mixed-sex wards, and they still exist in the vast majority of hospitals. Survey after survey shows they are one of the biggest sources of distress for patients, and I know from your letters and emails that you feel the same. In 2008 the Health minister Lord Darzi arrogantly claimed single-sex wards "were an aspiration that cannot be met", but now Mr Johnson is determined – with a general election on the horizon – to set aside funds to ensure change finally happens in 2009, and that the only place for mixed-sex wards in the NHS will be A&E. Keep your fingers crossed.
Who wants a dragon for a dad?
Well, I'm glad Duncan Bannatyne from 'Dragons' Den' isn't my dad. Smelling cigarette smoke in one of his daughters' bedrooms (his two eldest girls are 23 and 25, so they're hardly kids), he ruthlessly cut off her £400-a-month allowance without telling her the reason.
The 'Dragons' Den' tough guy supports the children from his first marriage but has inserted no drinking and driving and no-smoking clauses into the agreement. Duncan, a 30-ciggies-a-day addict for years, until he saw the light, is a spokesman for anti-smoking charity Quit.
Would it not be better to copy the tactics employed by the NHS in some areas, and pay his daughters not to smoke?
And why is he dishing out so much cash to his kids anyway? Surely they should be encouraged to stand on their own feet. He sounds like an inconsistent tyrant.
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