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A man duped by his ex-wife in believing her children were fathered by him has been compensated (15 January 2013)

Date: 15/01/2013
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, A man duped by his ex-wife in believing her children were fathered by him has been compensated

A man who was tricked by his wife in believing that he was the father of children whom he raised until they were teenagers had won £25,000 in damages for “bereavement”.
Richard Rodwell sued his ex-wife Helen for deceit after finding out the children he thought were his son and daughter both had a different father.
The 46-year-old factory manager said it was “like bereavement because he had lost the children who he always believed to be his.
Talking to the Mail he said he could not stop thinking about the children as he thought they were his life and that he always wanted to have children and grandchildren but now it was too late in his life for him.
Mr Rodwell, of Peterborough, helped raise Adam and Laura as his own until his marriage with their mother broke down and the couple divorced in 2004, the newspaper reported.
In divorce settlement his ex-wife was granted custody and Mr Rodwell paid £300, month maintenance for the children for the next four years.
But after hearing rumours that Laura, now 20, was not his daughter, he confronted her mother and ordered DNA tests in 2008.
When the results were out and he found that Laura was not his daughter he just broke down the told the newspaper.
He added he still would have been happy to have close relationship with the children as a stepfather but his ex-wife would not allow it rather she showed no remorse.
As fruit pickers at a factory near the King’s Lynn, Norfolk the couple had met in 1989 and married a year later.
But Mr Rodwell said that by 2004 the marriage was struggling, with his then-wife disappearing for several days with no explanation as to where she was going or why.
Mr Rodwell, who has since married his second wife Trudi, 47, was awarded compensation of £12,500 for each child in 2011, along with costs of £25,000.
Roger Terrell, his family law solicitor, told the newspaper that the court treated it on par with bereavement, awarding a similar sum which one receives for the death of a child in an accident.

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