Feckless father with children by eight women fakes death to avoid paying support to ninth baby on the way… and then claims: ‘I get so much hassle

[Alison J Stevens]

Feckless father with children by eight women fakes death to avoid paying support to ninth baby on the way… and then claims: ‘I get so much hassle

‘I’m dead’: Keith MacDonald, who has fathered eight children by eight women and has a ninth on the way, reportedly tried to fake his own death because his life was ‘too much hassle’

As Britain’s most feckless father, Keith MacDonald has done almost everything he can to escape responsibility for his eight children by eight women.

But just when many thought the jobless layabout could stoop no lower, he posed as a friend to announce his own death by text.

With a ninth child on the way, the binman’s son was desperate to avoid paying out any more than the £5 a week he currently gives towards each of his other children.

He sent a text message to his pregnant former girlfriend Clare Bryant, 22, telling her: ‘Keith is dead.’

Miss Bryant, who already has a one-year-old daughter by MacDonald, rang his mobile phone, but there was no answer. She then called the local hospitals and the police, but to no avail.

Two weeks passed before Miss Bryant found out that 25-year-old MacDonald was, in fact, alive and well. He sent her a message to apologise and told her that he wanted to ‘get away from his life’.

Last night an unrepentant MacDonald admitted that he had pretended to be dead, saying: ‘I get so much hassle from everybody.’

He then tried to blame Miss Bryant for starting the rumour. ‘It all came from Clare, she started it off. I thought I may as well just go along with it.’

MacDonald, who is paid £44 a week in income support and has never held down a permanent job, denies fathering all but one of his children on the grounds that they have different hair colour from him.

Baby trail: MacDonald, 25, with Becky Wright who gave birth to his latest child, Clio, just four weeks ago

It is claimed that he may have fathered up to 15 children, by 14 mothers. MacDonald, who met the majority of his conquests at bus stops, currently spends most of his benefits on lager and fruit machines.

Despite his growing family, MacDonald, of Washington, Tyne and Wear, refuses to have a vasectomy.

The growing bill to the taxpayer for his children could hit £1.5million by the time they all reach 18. The figure does not include education, NHS costs or any other public services.

Last night Miss Bryant, of Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, said: ‘I went through hell, I didn’t know what to think. What sort of sick person pretends to have died?’

Pregnant again: Clare Bryant, who received the fake death text from MacDonald, is expecting her second child by him

She says she was first told of his ‘death’ in a text from his phone on March 27, purporting to be from his flatmate, which read: ‘Here, its Jason, just tho I would Tel u keith is dead he went on friday.’

‘I was worried,’ said Miss Bryant, whose baby is due on May 3.

‘I was getting messages from Keith’s Facebook page from someone saying she was his sister, Kim.

‘The messages said Keith had died at his girlfriend’s house on Friday night. I got in touch with the police and the hospitals but nobody could tell me anything.’

Two weeks later MacDonald contacted her and admitted the scam.

‘I got this text from him asking me to be friends with him on BlackBerry Messenger,’ said Miss Bryant.

‘I replied asking him what on earth he thought he was doing.

‘He eventually admitted what he had done, said sorry and that he had wanted to get away from his life.

‘I told him it was the life he had built for himself. I am so angry, I don’t want to have anything more to do with him. What he has done is beyond belief.’

MacDonald boasts that he has slept with more than 40 women. He first became a father at the age of 15. Miss Bryant gave birth to his eighth child, Paige, last April.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377008/Keith-MacDonald-fak...