Germany:Berlin woman says she has evidence paternity test was faked, writes Derek Scallyin Berlin.
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German prosecutors are investigating a claim that Paul McCartney faked a paternity test in 1984 and is the father of a 46-year-old Berlin woman.
The woman claims that years before Jane Asher, Linda Eastman, Long Tall Sally and even poor old Eleanor Rigby, her mother Erika had a wild, three-year affair starting in 1959 when she was a waitress and the Beatle, younger, so much younger than today, was still a Quarryman playing Hamburg clubs. In 1962, the year of the Beatles' breakthrough hit Love Me Do, the affair turned to love me don't.
"The relationship ended when he learned that she was pregnant by him," said Bettina Hübers, who claims to be McCartney's daughter, to Germany's Bild newspaper yesterday.
Bettina claims that the Beatle sent her mother a 30,000DM cash pay-off (equivalent to €10,000 today) and a 200DM monthly allowance.
"Why did he do that if he wasn't the father?" she asked.
If money can't buy me love, did it buy the former Beatle silence instead? McCartney has denied he is Bettina's father and says that lawyers at the time advised him to pay a settlement rather than endanger an upcoming European tour.
When Bettina learned the identity of her alleged father, she took him to court in Germany in 1984. A Berlin court ordered a paternity test to be carried out in London. It was, the result was negative and the case was thrown out.
But after searching through the court documents, Bettina says she has found evidence that the test was faked. A photograph of the man tested back in 1984 is a Paul McCartney lookalike, she says, not the billionaire singer and songwriter who has been married twice, to photographer Linda Eastman in 1969 and former model Heather Mills in 2002, and has four children and one adopted daughter.
The German woman claims that the signature on the 1984 paternity test of the man tested is also dubious. "It's a fake. We've found out that the signature comes from a right-hander but Paul is a left-hander."
Bettina is demanding a new paternity test. McCartney has yet to comment on the matter but no doubt wishes she'd let it be.