Twins Separated At Birth End Up Married…

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to each other.

Twins who were separated at birth married each other without knowing that they were brother and sister, a peer has claimed. The couple were adopted as babies by different families, and neither was told that they had a twin. They met, fell in love and got married before discovering that they were blood relatives. Lord Alton of Liverpool, who was told about the case by a High Court judge, told the House of Lords that the British couple were then granted an annulment at a special hearing at the High Court in London. Judges in the Family Division ruled that the marriage had never been valid.

“For them it was a terrible tragedy,” said Lord Alton, who declined yesterday to name the judge who had told him about the case and said that he had no further details. Experts said that the trauma both of being separated and of discovering that they were twins in such circumstances would have had serious psychological consequences for the pair.

Lord Alton, who opposes parts of The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill now being debated in the Lords, argued that the twins’ experience demonstrated the need to strengthen a child’s right to know the identity of his or her biological parents. He called on the Government to “think again” about the Bill, which contains no requirement for the birth certificates of children conceived by egg or sperm donations to include this fact, despite calls from some MPs and peers for it to do so.

Yesterday Lord Alton said that the case of these twins “outlines the importance of knowing your identity, knowing who you are and your genealogy. This is to prevent incestuous relationships, but also for reasons of genetics and disease prevention.

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