Sperm banks have been making serious mistakes with anonymous donations for years, Hans van Hooff of the pregnancy advisory service FIOM told news programme EenVandaag on Monday evening.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the wrong information about the donor was often given to women, who were promised they could have their children by the same man.

The women were ‘messed around’ by the sperm banks, Van Hooff told the programme.

No access

The 40,000 children born up until June 2004 in the Netherlands from anonymous donor sperm have no access to information about their biological father, so FIOM developed a databank to allow them to find their father, brother or sister.

Matches made via the databank showed that ‘in many instances’ information about the donor was wrong, Van Hooff said.

For instance, of 34 children who thought they were full brothers or sisters, 24 were found to have different biological fathers.

Dna profile

Since the databank was set up in 2010, 660 people have had a dna profile made which has led to 67 matches between donors and their children or between donor siblings.

Anonymous donation has been banned since 2004 and the details of donors are now kept in a national register.