MOTHERS are being forced to pay back as much as $60,000 to men they wrongly claimed fathered their children following a contentious reform of child support laws.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal 18 men, cleared by DNA testing, have made use of changes permitting them to claw back funds paid through the Child Support Agency.
More than 300 men have been cleared by DNA of being fathers. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show orders for $171,567 to be returned have so far been made against the mothers.
Angry women's groups said last night that it would be the children at the centre of the disputes who would suffer most if money were paid back.
The money is being garnisheed from mothers' incomes by the Child Support Agency in the same way that payments are taken from the wages of non-custodial fathers.
In each case the duped men were able to prove beyond doubt in the courts they were not the fathers based on DNA paternity testing.
The new law, section 143 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act, requires the Family Court to consider issuing orders for repayment where paternity is successfully challenged and child support has been paid.
In the biggest case, Queensland man Ken Rodgers obtained orders for the repayment of $60,000 after making child support contributions over a decade to a woman who refused to even send him a photograph of his alleged child.
But not every man who is disproving paternity using DNA testing through the courts is getting his money back.
A Child Support Agency spokesman said courts decide on a section 143 order based on "particular circumstances of the parties".
But making mothers pay back child support was last night condemned by women's groups.
Sole Parent's Union president Kathleen Swinbourne said garnisheeing a mother's wages would only hurt the child.
"The money has already been spent on rearing the child," she said. "If the mother is forced to pay it back, its hard to imagine the child won't be disadvantaged."
She said men should raise doubts about paternity when they are first told they are a father.
Men's Rights Agency director Sue Price said men wrongly named as a father of a child were entitled to justice.
She said all child support payments made by a man should be "refunded in full" by the Child Support Agency where paternity is successfully challenged and then recouped from the woman.
"A woman's knows who she's been with in a particular month," she said.
"They must know if there is any doubt about whether the man they are pointing their finger at is actually the father."
The repayments are being made despite a landmark 2006 High Court ruling that stripped a $70,000 compensation payment for pain and suffering to father Liam Magill.
The High Court ruled there was no legal obligation for husbands and wives who cheat on each other to disclose their infidelity.
