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A Dutch man suspected of fathering more than 550 children worldwide through sperm donations has been ordered to stop.

The man named Jonathan, aged 41, could be fined more than €100,000 (£88,000) if he tries to donate again.

He was banned from donating to fertility clinics in the Netherlands in 2017 after it emerged he had fathered more than 100 children.

But instead of stopping he carried on donating sperm abroad and online.

A court in The Hague has told him to provide a list of all the clinics he had used and to order them to destroy his sperm.

The man was said to have misled hundreds of women.

Dutch clinical guidelines state that a donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 families.

They are asked to limit the number of times they offer their services, to reduce the chance that siblings might unknowingly form a couple and have children together.

But judges said the man had helped produce between 550 and 600 children since he began donating sperm in 2007.

Newshour's James Coomarasamy has been speaking to Mark De Hek, the lawyer who brought the case for the Foundation for Donor Children organisation. How did this donor get away with it for so long?

Photo shows: A baby's feet peeking through a shawl. Credit: PA

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