He seemed like a kind man just trying to help people conceive … until his serial fertility scam was revealed. The women he duped tell all

Even when she was searching online for a sperm donor, Vanessa wanted her children to know their father. In 2015, she was 34, the right partner hadn’t come along and fertility treatment “would have bankrupted me”, she says.

A website listing dozens of Dutchmen willing to donate privately seemed to answer her prayers. Though no photographs were posted, Vanessa was drawn to one profile in particular. The man – Jonathan – wrote that he’d been inspired to sign up after friends of his had struggled to conceive. “I thought: ‘That’s nice – he wants to help’,” says Vanessa.