Who’s real dad?
A MAN who learned the three boys he raised were not his own is writing a real-life whodunnit in a bid to track down their real dad.
Millionaire businessman Richard Mason, 55, was told by doctors he had been infertile since birth, after he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
DNA tests confirmed he had no biological link to his eldest son, now 23, and his 19-year-old twins.
Richard, a co-founder of Money supermarket.com, believes the same man fathered the boys during a fouryear affair with his ex-wife Kate, 54.
She admitted being unfaithful in 2016, nine years after they separated, when he confronted her about the children’s paternity.
It is not known if Kate’s ex-lover knows he is a father and she has refused to disclose his name.
Now Richard is planning to write a book about his traumatic ordeal and will litter it with clues as to the identity of his ex’s lover. He hopes it will lead to the mystery man being identified.
Richard said it was “not least for the boys’ sake because they will want to know who their real father is, even if, hopefully, they’ll always think of me as their dad”. Richard was told in 2016 he had cystic fibrosis, a disease which mainly affects the lungs and causes men to be sterile.
On receiving the shocking news he launched a legal bid to claw back some of Kate’s €4.5million divorce settlement, as well as suing her for paternity fraud. She has since been ordered to pay €280,000 after a legal case that allowed her not to disclose the real father’s identity.
Richard, now remarried to wife Emma, 46, said the revelation about his sons had left him heartbroken.
“You don’t know what’s real and what isn’t – it’s as if I’m living in the Matrix,” he added. “In an instant I discovered I didn’t really have any
ON NEWS ABOUT HIS SONS
children.” He claimed his ex-wife tricked him into thinking the boys were his. And he said: “After the divorce, she constantly hounded me for more maintenance, even though I always complied with the Child Support Agency demands.
“The biological father has never paid a penny as far as I know.”
A possible clue to the identity of the man is that Kate became interested in Judaism, insisted all three children were given Jewish middle names and refused to have them christened.
Despite winning his legal case against his ex, now living with a new partner in Uttoxeter, Staffs, two of his sons have cut off contact with him.
He said: “I’m not their father, I know that, but I’m still their dad. When I talk about them with other people, naturally, after 21 years, I say ‘my sons’, then I have to stop and correct myself and say, ‘the sons I thought were mine’.” His solicitor Roger Terrell said the case was thought to be a legal first. He added: “There has never been a divorce financial settlement set aside in such emotive circumstances.
“Normally it’s the husband brought back to court because he’s failed to disclose some of his income, but in this case it was the wife, and paternity of the children was the issue.”
You don’t know what is real and what isn’t.. as if I’m in the Matrix RICHARD MASON