Family proceedings

The Family Court held that parental orders would be granted in a case where the applicants were parents to three children who had been born after surrogacy arrangements had been commissioned in the US, but the applicants had not made their application until several years after expiry of the six month time limit in s 54(3) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008. The applicants had made the application promptly after they had become aware of the need to do so. In the circumstances, there was no prejudice suffered if the application was granted, and the welfare of the children required a parental order to be made so as to extinguish the residual parental rights of the respondents.