Declaration of parentage – the Shaggy defence

In the High Court, Poole J dealt with an application for a declaration of parentage, which the alleged father disputed.

YZ, Re (Declaration of Parentage: BATUK: DNA Evidence) [2026] EWHC 1601 (Fam) (26 June 2026)
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2026/1601.html

The circumstances are unusual – there’s an agency who has been doing DNA tests of children in Kenya where the mothers were saying that they believed the fathers of those children were UK servicemen from a British Army Training Unit. They collected samples and did a cross reference with Ancestry.com a website where people voluntarily submit samples in order to find members of their extended family and trace their roots.

In relation to the child YZ, a positive test came back for Mr UVW. He disputed paternity.

Mr UVW used a number of defences, each of which crumbled away over time and forensic inspection.

1. That he had never met the mother RS (that proved tricky given that there was a photograph of them together)
2. That he had not been in Kenya at the time of conception (he had)
3. That he had never had sex with her
4. That the testing agency KCL had muddled up his sample with another person who shared two of his three names – who also turned up on the same day as he had given his own sample to KCL and also happened to be the biological father of YZ

In short – “It wasn’t me”

The Court found that it was indeed him.

The burden of proof of paternity lies on the applicant not on the respondent, but Professor Syndercombe-Court’s expert evidence that there is a 99.9999999% probability that UVW is YZ’s biological father would be daunting for most respondents seeking to avoid a finding of paternity. Not so for UVW. He sought to challenge Professor Syndercombe-Court’s evidence and urged the court not to rely on her conclusion.

(I love “Not so for UVW”)

1. 
   The respondent was entitled to a fair hearing and to scrutinise evidence about the collecting and storage of samples but there is a gulf between engaging in reasonable scrutiny and putting forward a case about the DNA sampling that was fanciful. I regret to conclude that the respondent wasted court time and doubtless caused avoidable anxiety to the applicant by putting forward a wholly unmeritorious case that his sample was not the sample used for the purpose of Professor Syndercombe-Court’s report, but rather that YZ’s actual father, who happened to share at least two of the respondent’s three names, also coincidentally turned up at KCL on 18 December 2025 to give a DNA sample and that their samples were inadvertently exchanged during the sampling or testing process. The respondent is an intelligent man I struggle to accept that he honestly believed this was a possibility.
2. In his closing submissions, the respondent sought to persuade the court that DNA testing should be re-done but I find no basis on which so to order. There is no need to delay the conclusion of this application and further delay would be detrimental to the applicant and the child. The respondent’s attempts to undermine the expert DNA evidence have failed. The evidence is reliable. The other evidence is consistent with a finding that UVW is YZ’s biological father, but the DNA evidence puts that beyond any doubt. I conclude without hesitation that UVW is YZ’s father. In all the circumstances I am satisfied that the declaration of parentage should be made accordingly.
3. This is but one of the cases generated by the efforts of Mr Netto and others to assist women and children in Kenya who may not otherwise have had the opportunity to prove paternity. This respondent has denied paternity but has been proved to be YZ’s father. It is not for me to comment on the other cases, but in this case the applicant has been very well served by those representing her, the expert evidence, and by all those who have worked on her behalf.