A 20-year-old man is fighting for the custody of his nine-month-old daughter after it was revealed in court that the mother – who insisted the father was unknown – had taken another baby for paternity testing.

“I spent the nine months of her pregnancy living with her and I was in hospital when she gave birth. I was not expecting it when she listed our baby as having an unknown father,” the man told Times of Malta.

“I think she thought that because I’m from Cottonera I’m the type who will walk away from my child. But I’m not like that. I want to be in my daughter’s life and I hate generalisations.”

In January the Family Court declared that DNA tests showed that the man was, in fact, the father of the child and ordered that its birth certificate be amended accordingly.

This conclusion was not a straightforward one since, the court noted, the mother had tried to derail the course of justice with her “abusive actions”.

Mr Justice Robert Mangion heard that the baby was born to the couple last July at a private hospital. It was registered as having an unknown father, but this was contested by the dad who took the matter to court and requested paternity testing.

The court ordered the testing to take place and, in August, it initially resulted that the man was not the child’s father.

But it then turned out that the mother had taken her friend’s baby to the private laboratory where the testing took place. The court also heard how the mother had refused to give a sample of her own DNA – something that set off alarm bells for the father and his lawyer, Ludvic Caruana.

So the court ordered that the tests be carried out again and that, this time, the mother’s DNA had to be matched to the baby’s.

In order not to get caught the mother asked her friend to get tested instead of her – that way there would be a match with the baby (of the friend).

But the staff at the laboratory realised it was not the same woman and reported this to court. The court ordered the tests to be carried out once again and it finally emerged that the man was the father.

The court also asked police to investigate the mother for her deceitful actions.

Until the case was decided, the father said, he could not see his daughter for eight months to avoid legal complications. He currently had access visits once a week but he wanted to change this and wanted to fight for the custody of his daughter.

“All that has happened to me makes me question whether there are cases of fathers who were declared as not being the father because no one noticed that the wrong baby was taken for testing.

“Something must be done to ensure this does not happen,” he said.

ccalleja@timesofmalta.com