A judge has ordered the Public Registry to delete a man’s name from a child’s birth certificate and replace it with ‘father unknown’ after he proved he was not the biological parent.

Judge Robert Mangion upheld the man’s pleas after instituting the case against his wife and the Public Registry.

The man asked the court to nominate experts to carry out DNA tests under court order to establish the truth.

He said he wanted his name deleted from the certificate as he suspected he was not the natural father, although the girl had been registered in his name.

He told the court his estranged wife was refusing to submit samples for a DNA test without giving any reason or justification.

The court heard that the couple married in March 1990 and two children were registered under their names: the girl, who was born 10 years into the marriage and a boy born seven years later.

The father told the court that two months before the second child was born, he started to suspect the first child was not his.

He went to a serologist for a paternity test, which concluded there was a “zero per cent” probability he was the father.

2,776

the number of babies registered as having an unknown father over the past 10 years

Two months after this test, the mother gave birth to the ‘second’ child but three months on, the man filed a court case against his wife because he was “desperate” to know whether the girl was actually his.

Almost three years after the case was filed, the woman admitted the man was not her daughter’s biological father and agreed to submit samples for a proper DNA test by court experts. This test confirmed the results the man had obtained privately.

The court heard the woman was having an affair throughout their marriage.

According to law, a husband can renounce a child conceived in wedlock if he proves that it was physically impossible for him to have been intimate with his wife between 300 and 180 days before the child was born. Otherwise, he can also renounce the child if he proves that, during the said time, the wife had committed adultery.

The law also states that “a declaration of the mother to the effect that the husband is not the father of the child shall be given consideration in an action regarding the exclusion of the paternity of the husband”.

Over the past 10 years, 2,776 babies have been registered as having an unknown father, according to the Public Registry.

In 1,412 cases the mother was in her 20s. There were 905 babies registered as having unknown fathers to mothers under 19.

mxuereb@timesofmalta.com