Internet adoption twins taken into care in Wales

LONDON - American baby twins at the center of a transatlantic adoption dispute have been taken into the care of local authorities in Wales, police said.

Twins Kimberley and Belinda were adopted via the Internet by a British couple, Alan and Judith Kilshaw.

They have become involved in an acrimonious tug-of-war with Californian couple Richard and Vickie Allen who say they also adopted the babies and will fight in court to get them back.

The twins' real mother further fueled the controversy when she said that she now wanted them back.

The Kilshaws were visited at a hotel near their home in north Wales by social workers, a doctor and police.

Local authorities had earlier demanded copies of adoption papers.

Alan Kilshaw said he had appointed specialist childcare lawyer Diane Miller to act on his behalf.

"She will be getting in touch with the social services within the next few days and she will hopefully be agreeing certain arrangements with them in order to satisfy their immediate requirements in relation to these children.

"Once she has had the opportunity of considering the case and of having spoken with social services she will be happy to issue a further statement on my behalf," Kilshaw said.

Tranda Wecker, the twins' 28-year-old mother, was quoted in the British tabloid the Sun as saying she had changed her mind when she saw the six-month-old twins on television.

"When I saw them on TV with the Kilshaws I thought, 'Oh my God - they're my babies. What have I done?'," she said from her home in St. Louis, Missouri.

But her change of heart will not necessarily work in favor of the Allens, who had paid £4,000 ($13,000) through an Internet adoption broker for the children.

Wecker said she did not want them given to the Allens.

The Sun also reported that it had found another woman, US housewife Amy White, who had agreed to pay the same adoption broker Tina Johnson £5,800 ($19,000) for the twins but failed to find the money quickly enough.

The children were given to the Kilshaws in California in December by Wecker. They had paid an Internet firm £8,200 ($26,800) to adopt the twins.

They say they were unaware the Internet firm, Caring Heart Adoption, had already sold Wecker's twins to the Allens, who had paid £4,000 for them and raised them for two months.

Suffering a change of heart, the girl's natural mother told the Allens she wanted two days to say farewell to her twins - and then handed them to the Kilshaws in a San Diego hotel.

The British couple, pursued by the Allens, raced across the United States to Arkansas, where adoption laws are more lax.

They then flew back to their farmhouse in Wales with the girls.

- REUTERS