An Exeter man is taking the CSA (child support agency) to court after they refused to reimburse him for payment he's been making to them for over a decade for a child that DNA testing proved is not his.
Steven Carter has been involved in an 11-year dispute with the CSA after he was accused of being the father of a girl he has never met but was ordered to pay £31,000 in child support.
DNA tests taken this year by Steven and the girl – now aged 22 – finally proved they were not related.
But Mr Carter, aged 49, said the CSA have rejected his demands for the money to be paid back.
He said:"I had a one night stand with the mother of this girl on two occasions. She was with a boyfriend at the time.
"She obviously looked at me like a cash cow. It was a fling 23 years ago and the girl is now 22-years-old.
"I work in a nightclub and the CSA contacted my employers and took my money. They accepted her word with no proof at all. I always said she was not my child.
"I wore protection which I know is not 100 per cent – but from day one I knew she was not my child.
"Now the British Government seems to be penny-pinching off me. I work all the hours I can every day and have not had a holiday in nine years.
"I have had to borrow £20,000 from my father to keep going.
"Over the years the CSA has taken all my money. But I am not giving up on this. I don't care what it costs.
"I don't know if the girl knows who her real dad is. I feel sorry for her but I have had no contact with her mother.
"I would not know the girl if she walked past me in the street.
"But whoever her biological father is has got away with it and not paid a penny."
Security boss Steven – who suffers from dyslexia – had payments of £86.31p per week deducted from his salary by the CSA from June 2007 until April this year.
He paid £1,000 to take a private DNA test in February.
But dad-of-two Steven, from Exeter, said the CSA has refused to repay him the money even though officials promised in two separate letters that he would get a rebate if he was proven not to be the girl's dad.
One letter written by a CSA manager in August 2013 – referring to a private DNA test – said: "If this shows that he is not the parent of the child then he will be refunded back any money he has made."
But a (DWP) Department of Work and Pensions sposperson said such a rebate would not be considered if the paternity test was taken after the child had become an adult and the case was closed.
A DWP spokesman said:"If a person continues to make child support payments for year after year, the assumption has to be that they accept parentage.
"When there is a dispute, then the onus is very much on the father to prompt action and have a paternity test, rather than pay and wait until the child is an adult.
"Reimbursements can only be considered after a paternity test is taken."
But Steven's lawyer Kate Baker said: "We have not been provided with any legislation from the CSA which justifies them withholding payment to our client."