Another surrogacy adjacent news item. The Daily Mail and other outlets are reporting that:
"The home of reality TV star and Britain's first openly gay football club owner Barrie Drewitt-Barlow has been raided by police as part of an investigation into alleged human trafficking for sexual exploitation and rape...Essex Police later confirmed that two men - aged 57 and 32 - were arrested on suspicion of rape, human trafficking for sexual exploitation and administering a noxious substance."
The Family Education Trust summary on X gives the best overview on Barrie's activities over the preceding decades. Text copied for those who don't use X:
"Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, was the first gay man in the UK to buy a child through surrogacy along with his then-partner Tony in 1999 when they paid a woman in California to carry twins.
The pair went to court to be allowed to have same-sex parents on the birth certificates as “parent one” and “parent two” instead of “mother and father”.
He’s now being investigated over alleged human trafficking for sexual exploitation and rape.
Barrie and Tony were interviewed by Stacey Dooley to promote surrogacy. Notice she only asks how surrogacy affects the ‘carrier’, without questioning if it’s in the baby’s best interests to be separated from the mother at birth and sold to two men.
In 2018, their 18 year old daughter Saffron announced that she wanted twins via a surrogate and would donate any 'spare' embryos to her fathers, who were ‘desperate for more children’. They already had 5 children all born to surrogate mothers.
In 2020, Barrie split up with Tony and got together with his daughter Saffron’s 25 year old ex-boyfriend. They then announced they were ‘expecting triplets’ via another surrogate after interviewing 15 egg donors.
Drewitt-Barlow now has eight children by surrogacy. He admitted on Dooley’s documentary to paying a model £50k to carry a child because “Nobody wants an ugly kid”, glossing over the serious health risks of egg donation.
Ban surrogacy!"
Barrie and Tony set up The British Surrogacy Centre back in 2011.
I personally have a memory of one of them (I think it was Barrie) in one of the documentaries about their journey to become fathers via surrogacy for a second time, where he made gagging noises when discussion came up about whether their surrogate would give birth vaginally. He couldn't hold back his revulsion about the female form even in front of the cameras. I was quite young back when I saw that documentary but it has stuck in my head ever since.