Net adoption row couples go on Oprah

Spat aired on US chat show

By Linda Harrison in New York • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 1st February 2001 17:19 GMT

The two couples embroiled in the Internet baby adoption row have taken their spat to the highest echelons of the media - the Oprah Winfrey show.

The TV chat show queen sat between the two warring factions - British couple Judith and Alan Kilshaw, and Americans Richard and Vicky Allen, who came face-to-face for the first time yesterday.

"The reason we're doing this show is so it doesn't happen to anyone else," Oprah stated.

The Kilshaws claim they own the baby twins because they paid an online adoption agency £8,000 for them. However, they later found out the girls had already been sold to the Allens in California for half that price. After being shuttled around the US and across the Atlantic, the infants are currently awaiting their fate in the care of a local authority in Wales.

It is debatable if the decision to go on the programme itself was in the best interest of the twins - who have been thrust into the media spotlight since the spat began. Or whether the appearance on the show, which today features a chat with Hollywood starlet Julia Roberts, further trivialises the situation. ®