A lesbian who used donated sperm to conceive a child with her partner today explained why she felt the donor should pay child maintainance.

In an unusual case, firefighter Andy Bathie, 37, from Enfield, north London, has claimed that he had been assured by Sharon and Terri Arnold that he would have no personal or financial involvement in their children’s upbringing after donating his sperm.

However, he said that he was now "having money stolen" from him by the Government's Child Support Agency (CSA), which was forcing him to pay thousands of pounds in maintenance for the boy and girl, aged 2 and 4, cared for by the couple, who have now split up. Mr Bathie complained that he faced the financial demands despite the fact that he had no legal rights over the children.

Speaking on GMTV today, Terri Arnold insisted however that Mr Bathie had acted as a father to the children for a large part of their lives.

"What people don’t understand is that they have only heard one side of the story," she said.

"He was a father to the children, a dad. He played a father’s role for two years of their, well, my daughter’s life."

She said that the couple approached Mr Bathie five years ago after they "married" in a civil ceremony, and Ms Arnold admitted the initial arrangement was for him just to be a donor.

She said: "I will openly admit to that, but it was him that changed his mind. He wanted to be involved, he wanted to be a dad. Who was I to stop him?

"At the end of the day, I believed it would be beneficial for my children to have their father involved. He wanted that responsibility."

Far from never seeing his daughter, the fireman was in regular contact and looked after her one weekend every month, the mother of two added, she claimed.

She said: "Every time she needed something he was there, he paid for things, he helped me out. He approached us to take on the father’s role, not the other way around."

Today, Mr Bathie disclosed that he was campaigning to change the law so that he is not recognised as a legal parent to the children.

"I did look into the legal side and understood that, as a couple, they would be the parents, not me. I was never ‘daddy’," he told the Evening Standard in London yesterday.

"The CSA admit that mine is an unusual case. This is double standards and I’m having money stolen by the Government."

Mr Bathie claimed that he unaware of the legal pitfalls when he donated his sperm, and was shocked when the Child Support Agency contacted him last November to demand payments because the women had split up.

A spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said that men who donated sperm through licensed fertility clinics were not the legal fathers of any children born as a result.

"Men giving out their sperm in any other way, such as via internet arrangements, are legally the father of any children born, with all the responsibilities that carries," he added.

The CSA said that, unless a child was legally adopted, both biological parents were financially responsible. "The Child Support Agency legislation is not gender or partnership based," a spokesman said. "Only anonymous sperm donors at licensed centres are exempt from being treated as the legal father. This does not apply to men who donate sperm as part of a personal arrangement."

Ministers have drawn up fertility reforms giving equal parenting rights to same-sex couples who "marry" in a civil partnership. This means they will be recognised as the legal parents of children conceived through sperm donation. However, the change comes too late for Mr Bathie, although he is now pushing for an amendment to make the laws retrospective.

Phil Willis, MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, is chairman of the Innovation, Universities and Skills Select Committee, which deals with human fertilisation and research. He said: “The CSA has to look very carefully at the issue and make an assessment. I suspect Mr Bathie won’t get his money back, as there would be a flood of similar applications. Hopefully, common sense will prevail, particularly if he has evidence saying he was a donor and there was an agreement he’d have no further relationship.”

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