A YOUNG woman who prematurely went through the menopause said NHS red tape had "robbed her of motherhood".

Catherine Storey was given the news by her doctor when she was 18.

It meant the administrative assistant, now 20, could never have children naturally. Her only chance of becoming pregnant would be through egg donation.

But fertility experts at Newcastle's Centre for Life said she did not meet the criteria for treatment, because her fiance, Martin Sear, 42, already has children - though they live with his former partner 300 miles away.

She said: When I found out I couldn't have children, I was totally devastated. I still don't think I have come to terms with it.

I had not known what was wrong. My periods had stopped and I was depressed and lethargic, and I'd been getting 30 or 40 hot flushes a day.

I was just 18, but I felt 80.

My doctor did a blood test and found my hormone levels were all over the place. She explained what had happened and said the only chance I'd have to conceive would be by egg donation."

Faced with a four-year waiting list for private treatment in Newcastle, the couple took out a bank loan and travelled to Barcelona, where Ms Storey had IVF.

But after spending £13,000 on her first round of treatment, she is still not pregnant.

Ms Storey, of Dudley, North Tyneside, said: I feel robbed. I work hard and pay my taxes and then, when I needed the NHS, they turned me down."

A Newcastle Primary Care Trust spokeswoman said: The local NHS policy for receiving fertility treatment says to have access to IVF treatment, couples must have no other living children in this or any previous relationship for either partner, have had a minimum of three years unexplained infertility and no history of failed sterilisation reversal, in either male or female partner."