Surrogate mother Moira Greenslade had previously "sold" a baby over the Internet, it was revealed this week.

The Keighley News understands Greenslade, 33, gave birth after being artificially inseminated in a deal struck with a desperate couple contacted through an American-based web site.

On that occasion -- some years ago -- the infant was adopted and it is understood Greenslade was paid expenses.

It is also known that other couples have made surrogacy offers to Greenslade, of Fell Lane, Keighley. One desperate couple were prepared to fly her to America and look after her while she had a child.

This week Greenslade admitted in Court deceiving two couples into giving her cash after offering to sell them her unborn baby.

She pleaded guilty to three charges of obtaining money by deception and three offences under the Adoption Act.

After the hearing Det Chief Insp Mick Hopwood, head of West Yorkshire Police's Child and Public Protection Unit, said: "This case highlights for me concerns about the rights of the unborn baby and the exploitation of couples who are desperate to adopt."

Bingley Magistrates Court heard on Monday how Greenslade profited by £2,500 after offering to give up her baby to couples she contacted through the Internet.

Greenslade, who appeared in court dressed in a baggy beige fleece and navy blue trousers, also admitted placing adverts on an Internet web site offering to give the same baby up for adoption.

Yasmin Pitter, prosecuting, told the court how Greenslade, who has another child, made a £9,000 surrogacy agreement with Scottish couple Mark and Michelle Johnson, who had suffered 13 miscarriages and eight failed attempts at IVF treatment, in February last year.

She received a total of £1,500 from the pair, which she spent on her six-year-old son and family holidays, but cancelled the agreement little more than a week before the baby was due to be born.

Greenslade obtained a further £1,000 from Peter and Sharon Robinson-Hudson, from Wrexham, Wales, in a similar surrogacy agreement, worth £5,000, made when she was already pregnant, in August last year.

The agreement stated that Mr Robinson-Hudson was to say he was the natural father of the child and his wife was to try to adopt the baby after the birth.

But Greenslade sent an e-mail to the Robinson-Hudsons stating that she was cancelling the agreement because she did not want to see the child go into care.

The couple contacted Wrexham police to make a complaint of deception, and in December last year a search of Greenslade's home was carried out and her computer seized and examined.

She was arrested on suspicion of obtaining money by deception at the Princess Anne Hospital, in Southampton, on December 11, shortly after she gave birth to a baby girl who was subsequently taken into care.

Present at the hospital was a third couple who signed a surrogacy agreement with Greenslade, after she placed an advert on the Surromomsonline web site, in August last year, offering her baby for adoption.

The agreement stated that the couple would pay Greenslade £8,000 to adopt her child, again with the man claiming to be the natural father and his wife trying to adopt the child after the birth.

Greenslade had placed the second advert on the web site, in October, 2003, but said she intended to hand over the baby to the third couple.

On Monday, chairman of the bench Peter Illingworth adjourned the case to crown court for sentencing and granted the defendant conditional bail.

He said: "Taking into account all the circumstances we have heard and the likely effects on the victims of your deception, these offences are so serious they deserve greater punishment than we can give in this court."

Det Chief Insp Hopwood added: "The reaction of the couples was very shocked when we told them. They are, of course, victims themselves as they were people who were desperate to adopt children.

"This was an exploitation of these people's expectations."