Banned from adopting a 14-month-old boy by the government in Ukraine, Elton John has extended his search for a child. David Furnish tells Mandrake that the couple have considered adopting a boy in Africa.

"We were in Africa for the Aids Foundation and met a boy, and immediately thought about adopting him," the film producer disclosed at the launch of Stephen Calloway's book Gosling: Classic Design for Contemporary Interiors, at the Ritz. Unlike Madonna, who adopted David Banda, a Malawian boy still in touch with his father, David said they decided not to proceed.

"When we found out he had a maternal grandmother, and brother and sister, we realised it wouldn't be the right thing to take him away from the family he had there," he told the Telegraph. The pair have decided that they will not challenge the government in Kiev after one of its ministers said Elton was too old, at 62, to adopt and that it did not allow homosexuals to do so.

"We would love to adopt Lev, but that does not seem possible under Ukrainian rules," sighed David. He made clear that Elton would continue his Aids charity work in the former Soviet republic, which has one of the fastest-rising HIV infection rates in Europe.

Madonna was widely criticised for adopting David Banda in 2006 after it was disclosed that his father, Yohane, was alive and had placed the child in an orphanage because at the time he had been unable to cope with the baby. She adopted a second Malawian child in June 2009 when a supreme court allowed Mercy James, a three-year-old girl, to join her family despite objections from a man who claimed to be her father. James Kambewa said he was heartbroken that his girl had been taken away.

"My Mercy is gone," he said. "Madonna has used her money and power but my blood lives in Mercy for ever and ever."

Elton, who is worth an estimated £175 million, has at least 10 godchildren, including the son of John Lennon, Sean, and the son of Elizabeth Hurley, Damian.

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