‘Joe’ demands dead man’s baby - Sideman insists he is the real father

A newborn girl, delivered just two days before the man legally named as her father took his final breath, has been thrust into a bitter, emotional paternity showdown.

Barely a year since the birth of the child, another man, Andre*, has stepped forward -- loudly and proudly -- insisting the baby is his. To compound matters, he is demanding a DNA test to prove that he fathered Stacy's* baby. However, she flatly refuses to grant him his wishes.

Andre claims he was secretly involved with Stacy while she was married, alleging their affair spanned her pregnancy and continued even after the baby's birth.

"I even had fun with her before the baby born," he said. "And, since the baby born, we were like together going on again before the baby even six months old," he added.

According to Andre, there is no doubt in his mind that the child is his -- a conviction he says is rooted in timing, intimacy and what he believes are unmistakable signs.

"Normally, yuh know seh when yuh start sex wid a next man when the baby so young, sometime the baby take long fi walk, [but] the baby walk very quick," he said.

Andre admits, however, that there is no scientific evidence to support his claim -- only belief.

According to him, when she told him she was pregnant, the conversation left no room for doubt in his mind that the child was his. He recalls pressing her for clarity, only to be met with a response he interpreted as confirmation.

"I asked her which child is this, and she seh, 'who yuh expect?' " Andre said.

To him, those words carried a clear message -- that he was the father -- an assumption, he says, she never corrected at the time.

Following the birth of the child, Andre was shocked when he learnt the baby would be registered under the surname of Stacy's late husband.

"I ask her if she was going to put the child in my name, meaning I was sure the child was mine," he recalled. "But she seh no, she have to put the child in her husband's name."

The response left him stunned and frustrated.

Andre claimed Stacy told him her husband had been too sick to be intimate, fuelling his belief that he must be the biological father.

"She seh she couldn't do nothing like that with him, she could only hug him up," Andre told THE WEEKEND STAR.

But attempts to pursue DNA testing were dismissed.

"I ask her about a DNA test and she seh, if when me and she a have sex, if we did do DNA."

Andre says his access to the child is now limited, even though he has tried to help -- contributing small amounts of cash and buying Pampers when he can. He has also held the baby a few times.

The emotional toll, he says, goes beyond himself. Andre said that he wants to tell his 29-year-old son that he has a baby sister, but cannot do so unless Stacy agrees to a DNA test.

Still, he insists he will not walk away.

"Mi talk to God all the time, and mi heart keep telling me not to give up on this child."

The child's mother, however, flatly rejected Andre's claims, insisting he is not the biological father and that she will not consent to DNA testing.

"Is not that man's child and mi tell him already," Stacy told THE WEEKEND STAR. "Mi know a who mi breed for, and a nuh fi him."

She questioned why she should be pressured to prove what she says she already knows.

"Mi nuh must know who get me pregnant?" she asked rhetorically. "Mi nah do no DNA test."

Under Jamaican law, DNA testing involving a minor requires the consent of the child's legal guardian or a court order from the Family Court -- neither of which Andre currently has.

With Stacy refusing outright, the truth remains locked behind legal barriers.

In fact, Stacy says she has since cut off communication with Andre, accusing him of refusing to accept her position.

"Mi stop talk to him and, after a while, him start call, send voicenote and all kind a thing," she said. "What the hell wrong with this man?"

She rejected his account of their relationship, saying their involvement began only shortly before her husband's death and denying that she was seeking or engaged in a relationship.

"Mi meet him a little before my husband die, so me nuh know weh him a seh," she said. "Mi not looking no relationship. Mi not doing this."

* Names changed to protect identities