Internet twins' mum wants them back

LONDON - The real mother of American twins sold twice over the internet and at the centre of a bitter transatlantic custody battle, told Britain's Sun newspaper yesterday that she now wanted them back.

Tranda Wecker, the 28-year-old mother of Kimberley and Belinda, was quoted by the bestselling tabloid as saying she had changed her mind when she saw the six-month-old twins on British television.

They have been adopted by British couple Alan and Judith Kilshaw, already locked in an acrimonious tug-of-war with Californian couple Richard and Vickie Allen, who say they adopted the babies and will fight in court to get them back.

"When I saw them on TV with the Kilshaws I thought, 'Oh my God - they're my babies. What have I done?'," she told the Sun in St Louis, where she is from.

"I cannot be happy knowing they are so far away. I just want to see them again and make sure they are safe." Wecker accused the Kilshaws of holding the babies awkwardly and spending too long giving interviews rather than caring for them.

But her change of heart will not necessarily work in favour of the Allens, who had paid £4000 ($NZ13,202) through an internet adoption broker for the children. Wecker told the Sun she did not want them given to the Allens.

The newspaper also reported that it had found another woman, US housewife Amy White, who had agreed to pay the same adoption broker Tina Johnson £5800 for the twins but failed to find the money quickly enough.

The Kilshaws, from Wales, are being investigated by local authorities, who have demanded copies of adoption papers.

The children were given to the Kilshaws in California in December by Wecker. They had paid an internet firm £8200 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 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.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday denounced the "deplorable" sale of the twins over the internet, as authorities continued to probe the legal status of the babies.

"Everyone feels that it is absolutely deplorable that children are traded this way," Mr Blair told Parliament.

"Adoption should always be about the interests of the child first."

Earlier his official spokesman said the Prime Minister "shares people's horror that you can buy and sell children as a commodity, and end up with a situation where you have two sets of people who claim to be the parents."

Responding to the criticism, Alan Kilshaw said: "The British Government has a lot of cheek criticising the adoption system of another country. If Arkansas says we have adopted these children, that should be good enough.

"As far as we are concerned, we have adopted the children and brought them to Britain legally," said Mr Kilshaw.

- REUTERS