IVF guru, a lab scientist and questions over two babies whose parents attended his clinic were secretly fathered by the same lab technician

Questions were raised about Britain’s most eminent fertility doctor yesterday after it emerged two children whose parents attended his clinic were secretly fathered by the same lab technician. DNA tests reportedly revealed the two seemingly unrelated adults were both conceived using sperm donated by a senior lab technician who worked one floor above Patrick Steptoe’s fertility clinic at Oldham Hospital. Dr Steptoe later pioneered in vitro fertilisation and the world’s first ‘test tube’ baby, Louise Brown, was conceived in his Oldham clinic in 1978, a historic first that won a Nobel prize and was recently dramatised in the Netflix movie Joy, starring Bill Nighy as the fertility expert. Dr Steptoe later pioneered in vitro fertilisation and the world’s first ‘test tube’ baby, Louise Brown, was conceived in his Oldham clinic in 1978 The historic first won a Nobel prize and was recently dramatised in the Netflix movie Joy, starring Bill Nighy as the fertility expert The retired technician, now 84, told them Dr Steptoe ‘organised a liquid nitrogen sperm bank’ and ‘used sperm from lab staff, medical students and doctors.