I don't begrudge the child a penny but I hate being taken for a fool.

Gerard Bradbury

She swore that he was the child's father and he paid the maintenance even though he had never met his "son."

However, he said he was being crippled by the payments and also had a "nagging" doubt that he was not the boy's father.

So he paid �200 for the DNA test which proved there was just a one-in-14 million chance he was the father.

It only the second time in Britain that a man has overturned a maintenance order after a DNA test proved he could not have been the father.

"You can't believe what a weight has been lifted from my shoulders," said Mr Bradbury.

"I don't begrudge the child a penny but I hate being taken for a fool.

"The last few years have been a nightmare. But now at last I can get on with my life."

Meat inspector Mr Bradbury, who now has a new girlfriend, is due to get a refund of the �30,000 plus interest in the next few weeks.

"There must be hundreds of men throughout the country in my situation and I would urge them to have a DNA test.

There are rare circumstances where a person has been paying maintenance and then finds he is not the child's parent.

CSA spokesman

"If the baby is yours then you grin and bear it and pay up.

"But I think a lot of men are being taken for a ride."

A spokesman for the Child Support Agency said: "There are rare circumstances where a person has been paying maintenance and then finds he is not the child's parent."

"In that case we will stop collecting maintenance and will refund all the money paid."

CSA officials will decide whether the boy's mother will have to bear the cost of refunding the money.