The twin baby girls adopted over the Internet by a couple from Wales were last night unexpectedly removed from their care and placed in the custody of the social services.
In a dramatic development at a hotel in north Wales where Alan and Judith Kilshaw were staying with the six-month-old girls - Kimberley and Belinda - social workers from Flintshire County Council, supported by officers from North Wales Police, took the twins from the couple.
Events unfolded shortly before 9.50 p.m. when an emergency protection order was granted under the Children Act 1989 and police and social workers, who launched an investigation into the adoption this week, then moved in to take the children into protective care.
The Kilshaws had spent about four hours in discussions with police, social workers and a paediatrician inside the Beaufort Park Hotel, near Mold, north Wales, in advance of the decision to remove the twins. The couple have indicated they will challenge the emergency order.
Det Insp Nick Crabtree, of North Wales Police, gave a brief statement confirming the girls were being taken into the care of social services. He refused to comment on the whereabouts of the Kilshaws but he insisted they had not resisted the legal decision to remove the twins.
At about 10.30 p.m., fast asleep in carrycots and under the glare of the lights of camera crews and photographers, Belinda and Kimberley were taken away from the hotel by social workers.
The bizarre adoption of the twins, described by the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, as "disgusting", has sparked a bitter controversy in Britain and the US since the story emerged earlier this week.
The Kilshaws handed over £8,000 sterling to a "baby broker" in the US last December after they discovered, through an Internet website, that the twins were being offered for adoption. When they arrived in the US they discovered that the twins had already been sold to a couple from San Diego, California, for £4,000 sterling.
However, after the babies were handed over to the Kilshaws, with the birth mother's consent, and they were adopted and brought back to Britain, the US couple insisted they would launch a legal challenge to have them returned.
The twins' mother, Ms Tranda Wecker, insisted yesterday that she wanted her children returned to the US.
"I feel that the Kilshaws need to come back to the United States to settle this adoption," she told ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald.