Dear Mrs Macaulay,

I am querying the possibilities of getting my biological son. This is my first child, and his mother and I were living together for over six years, but then we split up. Two years passed, and in June 2023, my birthday, we had intimate relations and she got pregnant. By this time she was living with someone else. She found out a month later that she was pregnant, but wasn’t sure who the father was. She told us both that she was pregnant, but didn’t tell her new partner that she had slept with me. When the baby was born, we did a DNA test and it revealed that I am the father. However, the child was registered in the other man’s name before the test results came in. She is now afraid to say it to him, and she lives with him and his family with my baby. What can I do? I need my child.

This is a very unenviable position for you and the mother to find yourselves in, and you ought not to let too much time pass before resolving it for the most important reason – the child’s best interests.  The longer the child is left to believe that his mother’s partner is his father, the more confusing and painful it will be for him to find that he is not, and that you who he does not live with and probably does not know, are in fact his father.

You and the mother must get together and discuss it in detail. You could even consider seeking advice from a family (or child) counsellor about how best to firstly enjoy some access to the child, and then you both must consider the mother’s current partner and how he ought to be told.

You and the mother cannot just dwell on how you both feel and on what you each wish or want.  You, the mother, the current partner, and the child are all involved in this situation.  However, the child’s best interests are paramount to any of parental or assumed parental rights.

Your biological child has the undisputed legal right to know who his father is and thereby his paternal blood relations, and to have his name and have relationships with his family.  You also have a legal right to have your son bear your name, and to have custody (joint or sole) and care and control or access to, and therefore a relationship with him.  You also have the legal duty to provide maintenance for your child as far as you are able.  His mother also has a legal right to all I have mentioned above.  She also has the further legal duty to ensure the rectification of her son’s birth records so that they reflect his true paternal details and surname.

The only adult involved who does not on the face of it have any legal duties is the mother’s current partner. He is an innocent bystander as it were, because he is completely in the dark about the truth of the paternity of the baby he believes is his.

The reality of the situation is that it was caused by you and the mother.  In fact, moreso the mother, for the further complication of the registration of the birth before having a DNA test done.  The registration of the birth could have been delayed until it was done, but the current partner may have enquired why it was being delayed and the facts may have come out then, which at the end of the day, from a legal standpoint, would have been much better for the mother.

In any event, by permitting the child’s birth records to contain her partner’s name and possibly his particulars when she was not sure that he was the father, is an offence.   You and the mother and her partner are adults, and must know that for every act, there is at least one consequence.  You must all therefore face all the consequences and sort them out so that your son can have his name, his father, and family as is his entitlement.

As things stand, since the birth has been registered with the wrong father, and there is you the biological father who wants his child, the matter would have to go to court so that legal rectification can be made by the orders of the court, for your name as the father and your particulars to be entered in your son’s birth records and onto his birth certificate.

You are to make an application for a declaration of paternity. There ought to also be applications made for maintenance orders to be made and who should have custody and care and control of your son – you or his mother and her partner (if he still wishes their relation to continue). Determination should also be made for who can and should have access, and the specific details of such access.

The order of legal custody on the application for it, plus on the issue of care and control and access, could give custody to you and his mother jointly, or solely to you or to her.  This would mean that you and his mother would have the legal right to make all important and vital decisions about his life, health matters, education, any attempt to change his citizenship and religious practice and instructions, travelling out of Jamaica, etcetera – in other words, all important decisions which would and could affect his life.

Care and control refers to who should have the responsibility for your son’s daily existence, and with whom he would actually reside for the majority of his days.  Access means who would have the right to have him visit them either for some hours at a time, or for weekends encompassing Friday evenings to Sunday evenings or just the Saturday or Sunday of the weekend.  Orders could also be made about the responsibility for taking him to and collecting him from school each day, and for attendance at church services.  The issue of access during school holidays and how they would be shared between you and his mother should also be dealt with by the court.

There is also the issue of the mother’s current partner and what his position would be vis-a-vis your child, who is now registered as his son.  On this basis, on the face of the registration, he is the one who apparently has the legal rights and obligations of a father.

This is why you must make your applications to the Family Court to rectify what has unfortunately occurred.  The three of you owe this to your son.  His mother’s registering his birth as she did, resulted in her child’s rights being violated, and this must be set right, however the chips may fall.  She must understand this and do the right thing by admitting to the intimacy between you, which resulted in her pregnancy.

Even though you have your DNA test results, the court may order that it be repeated in one of its usual labs.

In your application, the mother’s partner, the registered father, must be named, as must the mother, as the respondents to your application. He could ask the court in the course of the hearing, since he knew nothing about the first DNA test, to order another test to be taken.

By the way, the Acts which apply to this serious matter are the Status of Children Act and the Children (Guardianship and Custody) Act.

Please act as quickly as you can. Do not permit the false registration and its false effects to continue for much longer. The sooner the better for your child and for all you adults concerned.  The Family Court provides the services of assisting applicants to have their applications and affidavits in support prepared by a clerk of the court at no charge, and you can apply and appear during the hearings in person or with the assistance of a lawyer ( if you wish to retain one).  The case is not complicated, though difficult for the adults concerned, but who have not only the moral but also the legal duty to have your son’s false registration of his birth rectified quickly.

Remember that when you go to the Family Court of your parish’s office to make your application you must take a certified copy of your son’s current certificate of birth with you.  This is absolutely necessary to enable the clerk to prepare your application for the respective orders needed to be made.  The mother’s and her current partner’s consents are not necessary to enable you to make your application, but for courtesy, in reality you ought to inform the mother of your intention so that she can find the courage and perhaps do her confession to her partner before they are each served with your filed application.

Please act as quickly as you can. All the very best.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.