IT will take 233 years for Ken Rodgers to recoup the money he paid for a child he never fathered.

Over a decade he forked out $71,000 supporting a son he was told was the result of a drunken fling in 1993.

The payments, of up to $200 a week through the Child Support Agency, meant the Townsville man was unable to buy a home of his own.

But despite never seeing the mother again, he agreed to do the right thing and provide financial support to the boy when told he was Brady's father two years later.

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"I was no scumbag. I grew up in a decent family and we took these things seriously" the 38-year-old aircraft mechanical engineer said.

But as the years rolled on, Mr Rodgers became increasingly frustrated at the lack of communication from the mother, Christine, despite his payments. Requests to meet Brady were dodged as the mother moved around Australia, from Hobart, to Launceston and Perth.

Addresses were never long-lasting and even pleas for a photograph went unanswered. At one point he hired a private investigator to track down his alleged child.

Finally, in 2006, he obtained a stay order on his payments along with an order for a DNA test, in the face of threats and protests, from the mother, to prove he wasn't the father.

In 2007, in a hearing in the Federal Magistrate's Court, he obtained an order for $60,000 to be repaid under Section 143 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989.

He was the first to get access to the new repayment policy.

However, any celebration from his court outcome was short lived.

Mr Rodgers learned the woman was a Centrelink client and is only required to pay the minimum $12.70 a fortnight. "I estimated that at this rate it will take me 233 years to get it all back," he said.

Now married to Anong with a five year old, Mr Rodgers, 38, said the amount he was paying from his income each week had stopped him buying a house for years.

He is especially bitter that a home in Townsville that could have been purchased five years ago for $150,000 was worth $300,000 by the time he was in a position to buy, when freed from his child support obligation.

Mr Rodgers said there were several men Christine had been seeing at the same time in 1992. He claims, based on discussions with mutual friends, that his name was the only one Christine could remember from that period so that's why he was targeted.

"It's terrible what was done to me, and really I want something done so I can get all my money back," he said.

Source: The Daily Telegraph 

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24632941-5001021,00.html