Robert Albon, known as “Joe Donor”, began offering his sperm online around 2013. He claims to have fathered more than 180 children worldwide, although that figure has never been corroborated. His activity took place outside the regulated fertility clinic system.
The problem arose when some families discovered that Albon was not always content with being a donor. In the UK, four cases ended up in court after he tried to obtain various rights concerning children he had fathered: he asked to be recognized as their father, sought parental responsibility and contact, and even, in one case, asked for a girl to live with him.
One of the cases took place in Wales, where he tried to obtain rights concerning a child conceived with his sperm and even wanted to change the child’s surname to include his own. The court rejected his requests and allowed only very limited indirect contact.
In another case, involving a girl from Durham, he asked for her to live with him after the authorities determined that her mother could not care for her. He lost that battle too.
The latest episode took place in 2026. Albon asked to be legally recognized as the father of a child born in 2021. He had received £100 for a first sample and a £150 Amazon gift card for the second, which resulted in the pregnancy. The court confirmed that he was the biological father, but refused to recognize him legally as the father, deeming that doing so would be contrary to the public interest given the scale and nature of his activity.
The judges also warned about the risks of his activity: there is no reliable record of all his children, the checks carried out by a regulated clinic are not applied, and there is a risk of diseases, genetic problems, unintended encounters between half-siblings, and future legal disputes. In 2023, a court even ordered his identity to be published to warn other women about his services.
Albon, however, has continued to present himself publicly as “Joe Donor”. His story has become a strange conflict between being a child’s biological father and having the right to play a part in the child’s life: the British courts have made it clear that the two things are not necessarily the same.