Paternity Fraud: What You Can Actually Do About It

Part of: Paternity Testing for Custody: Your Complete UK Legal Guide

Paternity fraud is not a criminal offence in England and Wales. No statute creates one. If someone deliberately told you a child was yours, knowing it was not, that is a civil wrong. The claim that goes with it is the tort of deceit. That single answer is the one most people are looking for, and it usually lands worst. The word “fraud” promises a police station, but the law offers a county court instead. This page sets out what the criminal law actually covers and what a civil claim can win you. Then it explains what the Child Maintenance Service will and will not give back. Finally, it shows how long you have before the door closes. It covers the law of England and Wales.

What is paternity fraud, and what does the law call it?

It is the everyday name for one person telling another that a child is his. She knows, or suspects, that he is not the biological father. The law has no such label. Courts talk about parentage, and registrars talk about particulars of a birth. The medical literature calls the same thing misattributed paternity or paternal discrepancy.

That gap between the word and the law matters, because it decides who you can go to. There is no offence with “paternity fraud” in its name. So there is no charge for a police force to record and no sentence for a judge to pass. What there is, instead, is a set of separate routes. One settles who the parents legally are. One can award you money, and one deals with maintenance. Finally, a narrow criminal route catches the birth register rather than the lie itself.

Most people arrive here having already found out. Not tested yet? Our page about paternity testing covers the procedure, the accuracy, home kits and court-directed testing. The separate court order that fixes parentage once and for all has its own page, on a declaration of parentage. This page picks up where those two stop: what was done to you, and what you get back.

Is paternity fraud a crime in the UK?

No. There is no criminal offence of paternity fraud in England and Wales. Lying to a partner about whether a child is his is not in itself a crime. However, the criminal law reaches two things that often sit next to it. One is what was said to the registrar; the other is money obtained by dishonesty.

The registrar is covered in the next section. For money, the relevant law is the Fraud Act. A person is in breach of section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 if they dishonestly make a false statement of fact. They must also intend by it to make a gain for themselves or to cause loss to another. The statement has to be one the maker knows is, or might be, untrue or misleading. On paper a lie about paternity told in order to extract money can fit that description. In practice the civil courts deal with these cases. The Fraud Act route is not a realistic answer to “who do I report this to”.

It can cost a man years and tens of thousands of pounds. So people ask why paternity fraud is not a crime. The honest answer is that Parliament has never made it one. Criminalising it would also mean criminalising a mother in front of the child she is raising. That is the policy argument, and you may well disagree with it. What you cannot do is build a plan on a charge that does not exist.

What is the penalty for lying on a birth certificate in the UK?

This is where the criminal law does bite. Under section 4 of the Perjury Act 1911, three things are offences. The first is wilfully giving a false answer to a registrar of births about the particulars the register requires. The second is wilfully giving a registrar false information concerning any birth. The third is making a false statement with intent to have it inserted in a register of births.

The offence is triable on indictment. Section 4 sets the maximum on indictment by reference to penal servitude for a term not exceeding seven years. Section 1 of the Criminal Justice Act 1948 abolished penal servitude. It also provides that a power of that kind is read as a power to imprison for up to the same maximum. Two limits matter far more than the headline number. The word is wilfully, so an honest belief that the man named was the father is not the offence. And under section 4(2), a prosecution on indictment cannot begin more than three years after the offence. For most people reading this page, that time has already run out.

What each route can and cannot do for you

Can you sue for paternity fraud?

Yes. The claim is the tort of deceit. The courts have confirmed twice that it is available between people who were in a relationship. You bring this civil claim yourself, against the other parent. It covers the money the lie led you to part with and the distress of finding out.

The ingredients come from Derry v Peek (1889) 14 App Cas 337. A v B [2007] EWHC 1246 (QB) set them out as five things a claimant has to prove. First, a statement made by words or conduct. Second, that the statement was untrue to the knowledge of the maker at the time it was made. Third, that it was made fraudulently, either deliberately or recklessly, meaning the maker did not care whether it was true. Fourth, that it was made with the intention that the claimant should act on it. Finally, that the claimant did act on it and suffered damage as a result.

Does it matter that you were a couple?

This point once looked doubtful: would a court allow a claim like this between a couple at all? P v B (Paternity: Damages for Deceit) [2001] 1 FLR 1041 answered it, in a passage that A v B quotes. The judge considered a confidence trickster who obtains money from a woman by lying to her and living with her. He saw no reason why such a man should be outside the scope of liability in tort. The judgment goes on: “and the same must apply to a woman who fraudulently deceives a man in order to obtain his money or property”. Domestic setting, ordinary tort.

Two things decide most paternity fraud claims long before the law does. The first is evidence of knowledge. Suspicion on her part is not enough. Proving what she knew, and when, is the hardest part of the claim. The second is whether there is anything to recover at the end of it. A judgment against someone with no assets is an expensive piece of paper.

What compensation is paid for paternity fraud?

There is no tariff. The only safe guide is what a court has actually awarded. In A v B the total was £22,400. That was £7,500 in general damages for distress and £14,900 in special damages. The special damages were half of the holiday and restaurant spending claimed.

The shape of that award is more instructive than the figure. The claimant in A v B had supported the child for roughly six years and had claimed far more. The court refused the claims for childcare and living expenses. It saw them as inextricably linked to parenting and family life. In other words, the judge separated two kinds of money. What you spent on the relationship you do not get back. What the lie induced you to spend you may.

So the honest expectation to set is this. The recoverable part is usually narrower than the total you feel you have lost. You need documents to evidence it, not memory. And the distress element is modest by the standards of personal injury awards. That does not make the claim pointless. It does mean you should decide whether to bring one on figures, not on anger.

How long do you have to bring a claim?

Six years, in the ordinary case. A deceit claim over paternity fraud, like any tort claim, must start within six years of the date the cause of action accrued (Limitation Act 1980, s.2). The catch, and it is a large one in your favour, lies in when those six years start.

Section 32 covers an action based on the defendant’s fraud. It also covers a fact relevant to your right of action that someone deliberately concealed from you. In those cases the clock does not start until you have discovered the fraud or concealment, or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it. Parliament wrote that provision for exactly this kind of case. The whole point of the wrong in a paternity deceit claim is that you were not told.

“Could with reasonable diligence have discovered it” is the sentence that decides cases. Suppose someone openly told you years ago there was a doubt. Or a relative said so and you let it go. Either way, the other side will say the clock started then. If the first real reason to doubt it arrived last year, the clock started last year. So write down now the date you first had a genuine reason to suspect, with whatever evidence fixes it. Do it before a defence starts testing memories.

Can you get back the child maintenance you paid?

Only part of it, and the cut-off is the date you denied parentage, not the date the payments started. GOV.UK says what happens if you prove you are not the parent. The Child Maintenance Service may refund the payments you have made since you denied you were the parent. It may also offset what you have paid against maintenance for another child. It may refund the cost of any DNA test it arranged, and it may ask the other parent to repay you.

Read that again, because it is the single most expensive line on this page. Everything you paid before you put the denial on record is outside the refund. There is no statutory route that hands back years of maintenance paid while you believed the child was yours. Have doubts but not yet said so to the service? Saying so is the step that starts the clock in your favour.

What the Child Support Act 1991 adds

The statute behind the dispute is the Child Support Act 1991. Section 27 covers the case where a maintenance calculation is in issue and someone denies being a parent. It lets the Secretary of State or the person with care apply to the court for a declaration of parentage. Section 27A runs the other way. Suppose tests take place and the results do not exclude the alleged parent. The Secretary of State can then recover the test fee from him as a debt due to the Crown. Testing is not a free throw of the dice. Want to challenge a maintenance decision itself? Our guide to the child maintenance tribunal covers appeals, and our child maintenance page covers the calculation.

What happens if you find out a child isn’t yours?

Three things happen at once, and they run on different clocks. Your legal status as a parent does not change by itself. Your maintenance liability does not stop by itself. And your relationship with the child does not end by itself. You have to deal with each one separately, and in that order.

Status comes first, because everything else follows it. Suppose you had married the mother, or entered a civil partnership with her. The law then presumes the child is yours until evidence rebuts that presumption. The standard is the balance of probabilities. The evidence must show it is more probable than not (Family Law Reform Act 1969, s.26). In civil proceedings where parentage is in question, the court can direct scientific tests. Only a body accredited by the Lord Chancellor, or a body he appoints, may carry out the testing (s.20 and s.20(1A)). A home kit does not meet that standard. The other parent may simply refuse to co-operate. If so, the court may draw such inferences from that refusal as appear proper in the circumstances (s.23).

Making it official: the declaration

The order that settles it for all purposes is a declaration of parentage under section 55A of the Family Law Act 1986. It can declare that a named person is not the parent of another named person. If the proposition is proved, the court must make the declaration. The only exception is where that would manifestly be contrary to public policy (s.58(1)). The application, the eligibility test and the fee are all on our declaration of parentage page. The court fee for filing it is £426, on the GOV.UK family court fee list current on 24 September 2026.

Once the court makes a declaration, a court officer must send it, with the application, to the Registrar General. That must happen within 21 days (Family Procedure Rules 2010, r.8.22). The Registrar General then authorises re-registration of the birth where it appears it should be re-registered (Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, s.14A). Taking a name off the certificate is its own process. Our page about removing a name from a birth certificate covers it.

One warning about timing. Under section 55A the court may refuse to hear an application involving a child. It can do so if it considers that determining it would not be in the child’s best interests. That is a real discretion. It is the reason to think about the outcome you want before you file, rather than after.

Paternity fraud: which routes are still open to you?

Pick where you are, then tick what is already true. There is no score, and this page does not save or send anything. Anything you cannot tick is usually the thing that decides whether a route is still open.

How common is paternity fraud?

Nobody knows, so treat with suspicion any UK figure you see quoted as fact. The most widely cited peer-reviewed review found published rates of paternal discrepancy varying between studies from 0.8% to 30%. The median across 17 studies was 3.7% (Bellis MA, Hughes K, Hughes S, Ashton JR, Measuring paternal discrepancy and its public health consequences, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2005;59(9):749–754).

That spread is the finding, not the median. Unsurprisingly, rates measured among men who already had a reason to test are far higher than in the general population. The studies also come from different countries, decades and settings. There is no official statistic for England and Wales because no one counts it: the register records births but does not verify them.

It matters for one practical reason. People in this situation often assume they are a freak case, and go quiet because of it. The literature says the opposite, and the quiet is what costs people their limitation period.

What happens to your relationship with the child?

In a paternity fraud case, a declaration that you are not a parent decides legal status. It does not decide whether you see the child. Those are separate questions, and people lose the second one by assuming it follows the first.

Have you raised a child as your own? Then you may well have standing to ask a court about arrangements for that child. That holds even though you are not a biological parent. And the child’s own view of who you are does not change because a laboratory report arrived. Some men in this position want nothing more to do with the family and say so plainly. Others discover that the money was never the point. Both are legitimate, but they lead to completely different advice. The order in which you do things also changes what stays available to you. Our guide to parental responsibility explains what legal status actually carries. Our page on how a father gets onto a birth certificate covers the registration side.

Decide what you want from the child relationship before you issue anything. A deceit claim against the mother and a continuing role in the child’s week are not impossible together. But they are much harder together, and you only get to decide the sequencing once.

What goes wrong, and what each mistake costs

• Waiting to deny it to the Child Maintenance Service. Refunds run from the date you denied parentage. Every month of hesitation is a month of maintenance you will not get back.
• Relying on a home test kit. Court-directed testing has to be done by an accredited body. A kit from a chemist may tell you the truth and still be worth nothing in a courtroom.
• Confronting the mother before you have fixed the evidence. Once she knows, her account of what she knew and when tends to change. That account is the whole deceit claim.
• Assuming the police will deal with it. There is no offence to report. Months spent waiting for a criminal outcome are months off the limitation clock for the claim that does exist.
• Telling the child first. It is the one step you cannot undo. It is almost never the step you have to take first.
• Treating the declaration as the end. It settles status. It does not return money, stop future disputes about contact, or change the birth register on its own.

Frequently asked questions

General information about the law in England and Wales, not advice on your circumstances.

Expert Tip

The first thing men who uncover paternity fraud want to do is confront the mother. It is almost always the wrong first move. Write down three things instead. First, the date you first had a real reason to doubt it, and what caused that doubt. Second, whether she was your wife at any point between conception and the birth. Third, the total you have actually paid out, with the statements that prove it. Then put the denial to the Child Maintenance Service in writing. Those four things decide how much of this is still recoverable. Every one of them gets harder to establish after the conversation, not before it.

Garry Steedman, Family Law Consultant (Divorce, Children & TOLATA)