A father and daughter in Australia shook the nation Sunday by revealing they had a sexual relationship. The daughter conceived two children in the last seven years, one of them has survived.
A father and daughter in Australia shook the nation Sunday by revealing their sexual relationship. The daughter has a child too by her father.
Jennifer Deaves said she was reunited with her long-lost father, John, 30 years after he left her mother.She was 31 when they met again seven years ago, but instead of a normal father-daughter relationship, they fell in love.
As their own marriages failed, they became intimate.
Jennifer gave birth to their first child seven years ago in Rockhampton, in northern Queensland, according to court documents.
“The first child was born in 2001 but died a few days after birth due to a congenital heart disease,” South Australia district court judge Steven Millsteed said when sentencing the pair for incest last month.
On March 20, the couple were sentenced to a three-year good behaviour bond after pleading guilty to two counts of performing an act of incest.
Millsteed said at the time he took concerns about the health of children born from incestuous relationships into consideration while deciding a sentence.
“Relevant factors include: the need to prevent the high risk of congenital defects of children born of incestuous relationships; and to prevent children, who are brought up in a family unit founded on an incestuous relationship, suffering psychological harm and social stigmatisation,” he said.
Millsteed also said the couple had agreed to not have sex with each other again.
“You both say that you accept your sexual relationship must end, but hope that you will be able to continue to support one another and the children.”
A police spokesman said they "were being monitored".
"John and I are in this relationship as consenting adults," Jenny told Australia's 60 Minutes programme.
"We are just asking for a little bit of respect and understanding."
They showed their nine-month-old daughter Celeste, who appeared fit and healthy - although their first child died of a congenital disease within days of birth. Jenny, who has two children from a previous relationship, is now 39.
She said that soon after reuniting with John she saw him as a man first and her father second.
"I was looking at him, sort of going, oh, he's not too bad," she said. "Like you might look at a man across the bar at a nightclub."
Deaves 61, who lives with his daughter in the town of Mount Gambier, admitted he "initially" thought having sex with her was wrong, but "emotions took over."
"I knew it was illegal, of course I knew, but you know, so what," he said.
Jenny said the physical relationship with her father was like "a sexual relationship with any other man". Deaves said it was "absolutely fantastic."
However, the duo also claimed on air that they had ended the sexual side of their relationship and would find it easy not to sleep together again because of the risk of imprisonment.
"We will continue living as a normal, happy family for years to come," Jenny said.
Psychologists interviewed on the program said the phenomenon was not uncommon, and was called Genetic Sexual Attraction.
Source-Medindia
GPL/L
