LONDON -- Former Beatle Paul McCartney said Wednesday he was not the father of a 20-year-old German woman a court ordered him to support financially and said he was willing to undergo more blood tests to prove it.
'I have denied right from the outset ever knowing this German lady (the mother of Bettina Heubers),' McCartney said in a statement issued the day after he had been ordered to pay $282 a month to the woman.
Last week the judge in the paternity suit refused to accept as evidence a blood test submitted by McCartney that indicated he was not the father.
McCartney stood by the first test and said he would undergo additional ones if the court desired.
'I am not the father of her child as the test has proven,' he said. 'I am willing to make myself available at any time to have as many blood tests as the German authorities wish.
'For my family's sake I want to clear this matter up.'
West Berlin Judge Ingrid Kuhla's maintenance order was backdated to Sept. 29, when Miss Heubers filed her paternity suit. The judge said the order would remain in force until the paternity suit were decided.
A McCartney spokesman said the singer's lawyers planned an immediate appeal of the maintenance order and predicted new blood tests would prove McCartney could not have been Miss Hueber's father.
The young woman's lawyer successfully argued last week the blood tested and offered as evidence 'could have been anybody's.'
'There is no real proof that it is his,' he said.
The court will rule at the end of the month whether McCartney, 40, must undergo another blood test under the court's control.
German officials said if it were proved McCartney was not Miss Huebers' father, he could seek repayment of the maintenance money.
Miss Huebers' mother has testified she had an affair with McCartney in Hamburg in 1961-62 when the Beatles were appearing at the Star nightclub. She said the group left West Germany on the day her daughter was born in December 1962 and she never saw him again.
McCartney is alleged to have paid $12,000 to support Miss Huebers during the first 18 years of her life, but he has never directly admitted he is her father.
