Man With 1000 Kids crushed one Aussie mum, as she pleads for a change

An Australian mum who unknowingly used the rogue ‘serial sperm donor‘ at the centre of a new Netflix documentary has broken her silence about how he devastated her life.

Sydney mum Laura has revealed how she and partner Kate were left shattered after learning the true identity of their sperm donor, Jonathan Meijer.

The Dutchman is accused of fathering more than 500 children worldwide and conning vulnerable families, starting in the Netherlands and then spreading globally.

The shocking tale has now been laid bare in The Man with 1000 Kids, the Netflix documentary which explores the backstory behind Meijer and how he managed to get away with it. 

Now Sydney couple Laura and Kate have revealed how they paid for his donation in Australia which led to their first child following a successful insemination.   

It should have been the happiest time in their lives, but when the couple started inquiring if their child would have any siblings elsewhere in the world, they made a horrifying discovery on a Facebook group.

The realised they were among the suspected thousands of parents who had been conned by Meijer, who had left a baby trail across the planet.

‘Being told that your child is one of thousands was a great loss for both my partner and myself,’ Laura told Nine’s Today Extra show on Friday.

‘But over time the shock really changed into a motivation for us to create change in the industry.

‘We took back control and power over our family in doing that, and not only that, we are helping the donor conceived community to undertake a massive law reform.’

In April 2023, several parents filed a civil suit against Meijer at the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands to ban Meijer from continuing to donate sperm. 

The judge agreed, citing the mental well-being of the families and the ‘psychosocial well-being’ of the children who will come to learn that they have ‘hundreds of half-siblings’.

Many of the parents stressed the risk of incest and psychological distress for children who discover the conditions surrounding their birth. 

The court ruled that he can no longer donate any more sperm and prior samples in clinics must be destroyed.

The court also imposed a fine of €100,000 Euro (about $160,000 AUD) per case if he violates the ban.

‘It’s given us a great deal of power and a great deal of contribution to the donor conceived community that we didn’t really perceive would happen,’ Laura explained.

In the Netherlands, a sperm donor is legally allowed to donate to only 12 different mothers for a total of 25 children. 

Meijer is conservatively estimated to have fathered at least 500-plus children.

By 2017, Meijer had already violated the 25-child limit set out by Dutch legislation. 

He is believed to have already fathered about 100 babies at that point, which triggered a donor ban by the National Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

But those babies were only the ones that had been logged in the system – with Meijer lining up countless more in private arrangements. 

He continued to donate by offering his services online and to clinics across the globe which Meijer insists he did without breaking any rules.

The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, found he may have fathered up to 1000 children on several continents.

The YouTuber and cryptocurrency trader, 41, first started donating his sperm in 2007 in the Netherlands and continued for at least a decade until he was confronted by the mothers.

Despite the best efforts from families to get Meijer to tell the truth, he continued to refuse to admit the total number of children that he has fathered.

He described the documentary as ‘sensationalising and misleading’ and said the number of ‘1,000’ is not one he thinks is true.

‘I want to talk freely, I want to have [a say] in my own story,’ he said in a YouTube video outlining why he didn’t participate in the Netflix documentary.

‘I’ve seen the trailer, somebody sent it to me because I don’t watch Netflix. I don’t have Netflix, I think it’s evil.

‘I help people, that’s it. But I’m more sad that they decided to change the lives of all my donor children […] It’s not right to sensationalise. 

‘They should have asked all the parents and children [before making the documentary].’

According to Meijer’s YouTube channel, he is still travelling the world.

Click here to resize this module