Baby born through surrogacy removed from UK's oldest parents

Britain's oldest new parents have had their one-year-old child, born through surrogacy, taken into care by social services. 

The age of the couple is thought to be a factor in the decision to remove the child into care: the mother is 63, and the father 65.

'Social services have been dealing with them since last year and told them to make improvements in how the child was being looked after,' a source told The Sun. 'They then decided that the called-for improvements had not happened and took the child into care.'

The unnamed couple, who live in the north of England, reportedly spent £100,000 on fertility treatments overseas after British clinics refused to help them conceive because of their age. The child was conceived using the father's sperm and a donor egg, and was carried by a surrogate.  

The British surrogate and her husband were initially named as parents on the birth certificate, but a parental order issued by a UK court means that the commissioning couple are the legal parents of the child. 

The child is currently in foster care whilst the parents, who are said to be 'devastated', fight for custody.