We can only guess at the feelings of someone who has suffered as Mrs U has suffered

Lady Justice Hale

Britain's most senior female judge Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, rejected Mrs U's claims in January but ruled the samples should not be destroyed until the woman had a chance to appeal.

However Lord Phillips, sitting with Lord Justice Mummery and Lady Justice Hale, have now granted the clinic permission to destroy the sperm samples.

Lady Justice Hale said: "We can only guess at the feelings of someone who has suffered as Mrs U has suffered, but we can sympathise and even empathise with them.

"There is a natural temptation to try to bend the law so as to give her what she wants and what she truly believes her husband would have wanted.

"But we have to resist it."

Vasectomy reverse

She said that the question for the court was whether the centre had "an effective consent for the continued storage and later use of these sperm".

Lady Justice Hale said that without the consent, it was "unlawful for them to continue to keep it."

Mrs U and her husband married in 1993. Mr U had two children from a previous marriage and later had a vasectomy.

The couple wanted to have a family and Mr U underwent an unsuccessful operation to reverse the vasectomy.

In September 2000, Mr U had a successful operation to remove his sperm but Mrs U's later treatment was unsuccessful.

Her husband died before she had a chance for a follow-up appointment.

In a similar case, Diane Blood gave birth to a baby boy three years ago after sperm was taken from her dying husband.

She won a two-year battle in 1997 when an appeal court ruled that under European law she could take the sperm to Belgium for IVF treatment.