Mum spared jail after faking her daughter's paternity test

A MUM spun a web of lies after cheating on her boyfriend and led him to believe that another man’s child was his own.

- By ADAM EVERETT

Beth Fernley “played God” and faked DNA tests which falsely claimed that her partner was the baby’s dad. He lived under the false impression that he was the little girl’s biological father for years until she eventually revealed her cruel deception, at which stage his “entire world fell apart”.

A judge yesterday told her that she “could not have complained” if she had been sent to prison but ultimately spared her this fate due to her parenting responsibilities.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that Fernley, of Wroxham Road in Great Sankey, Warrington, had been in a relationship with Ryan Hampson from 2015 until around January 2019.

Two months later, in March 2019, the now 26-year-old then told her former partner that she was pregnant and stated that a man named Dominic Hensey was the unborn child’s father. But Gareth Roberts, prosecuting, described how she then contacted him again the following month and said that she was “unclear” who the father was. Fernley went on to claim that she had completed a paternity test with a company called EasyDNA, which showed that there was a “zero per cent chance” that Mr Hensey was the dad.

The defendant subsequently went on to provide Mr Hampson with a screenshot claiming that there was a “99.9 per cent probability” that he was the father. He subsequently transferred £300 into her bank account in order to make a contribution towards the costs of these supposed DNA tests and bought items for the unborn baby.