The social services department facing public recriminations over a 13-year-old's fatherhood attempted to extricate itself from the row today by denying it had agreed to pay for a paternity test for Alfie Patten.

Reports suggested that the local council had offered to pay for a DNA test to determine whether the schoolboy had fathered a child with his 15-year-old girlfriend Chantelle Steadman, 15. A spokeswoman for East Sussex County Council’s children’s services department today took the unusual step of responding directly to deny the claims.

Images of the baby-faced teenager from Eastbourne holding his newborn child, named Maisie, were published around the world over the weekend after a report in the British press. Publication of the story has come under intense scrutiny with the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) investigating alleged payments made by The Sun and The People newspapers to Alfie Patten’s parents.

As paparazzi and reporters descended on the homes of the young parents, neighbours suggested that the Steadmans had “done a bunk” under cover of darkness last night with the week-old baby.

The whereabouts of the mother and child were unknown but Alfie emerged from his family home in Hailsham, East Sussex, this morning with his face covered by a hooded top.

It also emerged today that Nicola Patten, Alfie’s mother, is due to appear at Eastbourne Magistrates’ Court next week charged with “failing to send a child to school”. It has been reported that the teenager did not regularly attended classes at Willingdon Community School.

A spokeswoman for HM Courts Service said the prosecution was brought by East Sussex County Council’s Education Welfare Service but would not confirm whether the child in question was Alfie.

In the days after Alfie was pictured with his daughter, two further teenagers from the South Coast came forward to claim that they also had sex with the young mother. Max Clifford, a publicist representing the Patten family, said these claims prompted the family’s desire to prove the child’s paternity.

It was reported this morning that a £300 paternity test would be paid for by the local council. “Social services agreed to do it for the sake of the children,” Penny Steadman, Chantelle’s mother, told The Sun. “The sooner it’s done, the sooner Chantelle and Alfie can get on with being parents.”

A spokeswoman for East Sussex County Council said: “We have not paid for and neither have we offered to pay for a paternity test for Alfie Patten.”

A spokesman for East Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust added that the NHS did not pay for DNA tests.

Matt Dunkley, director of children’s services at the council, said it would be making no further comment on the case.

“Our primary duty is the protection of children and young people,” he said. “We do not believe the interests of the children and young people in this case are being well served by the current media coverage of it.

“We will continue to do our professional job of supporting these children and young people and putting their interests first, and for that reason we will not be commenting on this issue further.”

The PCC’s inquiry into the media’s handling of the situation is expected to last around a fortnight. The watchdog’s code of practice says that “minors must not be paid for material involving children's welfare, nor parents or guardians for material about their children or wards, unless it is clearly in the child’s interests”.

An exception, though, is made if there is “demonstrable public interest”, and both titles are expected to argue strongly that the news they published was highly significant.

A spokesman for The Sun, which is owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, said: “We will be happy to fully co-operate with PCC’s inquiry into this story which we absolutely believe to be in the public interest.”

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