THE British woman who is pregnant with octuplets remained in hiding yesterday as it emerged she was given fertility treatment without her boyfriend's consent and that he lives with another woman.
Ms Mandy Allwood (31), an unemployed single mother from Solihull in the West Midlands, remains adamant that she wants to have all eight babies. She says her boyfriend, Mr Paul Hudson, a father of two, is happy with the situation.
But Mr Hudson's common law wife, Ms Maria Edwards, who is the mother of his children, is believed to be less than happy to learn that he has spent the last three years sleeping with Ms Allwood on alternate nights.
Ms Allwood, who claims she fully understands Mr Hudson's living arrangements, conceived the eight babies after taking two doses of a fertility drug which she received on the National Health Service.
Despite being warned not to have sex because of the risk of a multiple pregnancy, she ignored her doctor's advice. She also did not tell Mr Hudson she was having the treatment. Her sister, Ms Jackie Burgess, has said she believes Ms Allwood deliberately became pregnant to "keep her man.
Amid claims that she has agreed to a "pay per baby" deal with the News of the World, Ms Allwood insisted she had "no regrets" about selling her story.
The publicist, Mr Max Clifford, confirmed that his client, who has rejected medical advice to abort six of the foetuses, knows her story would be worth considerably less if she had an abortion. He also predicted she could earn "several million pounds" through sponsorship.
He said: "If four or five or six do die, then you don't have something which is shattering in terms of a worldwide news story. Obviously it is market forces."
Her doctor Prof Kypros Nicolaides head of foetal medicine at King's College London said Ms Allood's judgment could "be affected by the sums of money involved and he appealed to the News of the World to end its exclusive agreement.
"I think it will be very difficult for people to take the right decisions under the spotlight of the media from all over the world. There has not been a single case in "the history of the human race so tar where somebody has successfully delivered eight babies. The obvious option is to reduce the number of foetuses to two."
As other newspapers began investigating Ms Allwood's past, the News of the World attempted to play down claims that their financial agreement had created a "cheque book sliding scale" for foetuses.
Mr Stuart Kuttner, managing editor of the newspaper, said: "There is no incentive element in our contract with Miss Allwood. There are no words in the contract that suggests she will be offered £125,000 per baby."
As the furore over Ms Allwood's situation continues, it has also emerged that she has had an abortion and is allegedly wanted for questioning by the police over a series of thefts of petrol from garages.
