Image – Wikimedia Commons: Tony (Left) and Barrie (Right) Drewitt-Barlow with their surrogate children Saffron and Aspen in 2011
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, one of Britain’s most high-profile surrogacy campaigners and part of the country’s first gay couple to have children through surrogacy, has appeared in court charged with a series of serious sexual offences, including rape and human trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Drewitt-Barlow, 57, and his husband Scott Hutchison, 32, were remanded in custody after appearing before Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court following coordinated police raids across Essex.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow has been charged with three counts of sexual assault on a male, four counts of rape of a man aged 16 or over, and two counts of arranging or facilitating the travel of another person with a view to exploitation. Scott Drewitt-Barlow has been charged with one count of sexual assault on a male, one count of rape of a man aged 16 or over, and two counts of arranging or facilitating travel for exploitation.
The alleged offences are said to have taken place between 2013 and 2026.
Prosecutors told the court the pair allegedly “targeted young males”, recruiting, befriending and grooming them before inviting them to their home and other premises. Both men deny the allegations.
Essex Police carried out searches at the couple’s mansion in Danbury, The Swan pub in Braintree, and the Drewitt-Barlow Stadium, home of Maldon & Tiptree FC, the non-league football club they own. A planned ITV reality television series following the club has reportedly now been shelved.
The case has thrown renewed scrutiny on Drewitt-Barlow’s long and controversial public profile. In 1999, Barrie and his then-partner Tony Drewitt-Barlow became famous as Britain’s “first gay dads” after having twins through an American surrogate. The pair later built a media career around their family life and became outspoken advocates for commercial surrogacy.
In 2011, they launched the British Surrogacy Centre, helping connect intended parents with surrogacy arrangements overseas, particularly in countries where commercial surrogacy is legal.
Feminist writer Julie Bindel, a long-time critic of the global surrogacy industry, said she had warned for years about the commodification of women and children involved in what she calls “Big Fertility”. Writing recently about Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, she described today’s surrogacy market as a “huge, lucrative, global trade” and accused the industry of treating babies as designer consumer products.
Bindel recalled a 2011 Woman’s Hour debate in which Drewitt-Barlow boasted about the appearance of his children, saying: “Well, you get what you pay for.” She also alleged that he spoke dismissively about surrogate mothers, claiming he insisted on Caesarean births because he did not want his children “coming out of a woman’s vagina”.
Drewitt-Barlow again attracted major headlines after separating from Tony and beginning a relationship with Scott Hutchison, who had previously dated Barrie’s daughter, Saffron. Hutchison had also reportedly worked as Barrie’s personal assistant before the relationship became public.
The pair now have children together through surrogacy arrangements of their own.
Both men are due to appear before Chelmsford Crown Court on 5 June.
Commenting on the issue, SPUC’s Executive Director, Michael Robinson, said: “A man who was so proud of normalising an industry which eugenically designs babies, destroys those who don’t meet his own vain criteria, and spoke with such anger against those who questioned his practices was obviously not a safe man to raise children. Those who have been concerned for the last thirty-years are now vindicated. This country’s laws around surrogacy are so loose that dangerous predators can get access to children without any checks from social services. Surrogacy creates children for the sake of intentional deprivation from the mother who carried and nurtured them, placing them instead with unrelated adults. This is not fair.”
“I hope this and the growing number of high-profile surrogacy horror stories will cause the government to act to protect children from abuse, destruction, and being robbed of their parents through this cruel industry.”
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