A FATHER of 12 children – by six different mothers – will go to jail for 45 days if he fails to pay almost �2,000 in outstanding fines, magistrates warned today. Peter Kofie, who says he gets on well with all the children s mothers, claims he knew nothing

A FATHER of 12 children - by six different mothers - will go to jail for 45 days if he fails to pay almost �2,000 in outstanding fines, magistrates warned today.

Peter Kofie, who says he gets on well with all the children's mothers, claims he knew nothing of fines imposed on him last year, relating to a car he bought one of the ladies.

"I bought cars for five of the mothers," he told Fenland magistrates. "I pay for their car insurance and road tax. I am the registered keeper of all the cars."

Kofie, whose address is recorded by the court as Westfield Road, Newton, owed a total of �1,924. The court ordered him to pay off the debt at �30 a week, or go to prison.

Two fines were imposed in September and October last year for offences of failing to give information about a driver suspected of speeding, and he owed almost �100 in back tax.

Kofie, who makes an average of �700 a week from buying and selling pottery and ceramics, was living in the Wiltshire area when those fines were imposed, he said.

He also owed �217 for an offence of assaulting a police officer in 2007, and a �120 fine for being drunk and disorderly last June.

Kofie committed the drunk and disorderly offence when out celebrating the birth of a child, he explained. He decided not to pay the fine, because he felt aggrieved, after suffering broken ribs and a punctured lung during the incident.

He failed to pay the fine for assaulting an officer, because he had not been told how to pay, and he suffered from short term memory loss.

"The majority of these fines I did not know about, I did not know about the fines regarding the cars," he told the court. "But I have a duty to pay, and I will.