An Australian man and his daughter have asked for understanding after revealing on national TV they have an incestuous relationship

An Australian man and his daughter have asked for understanding after revealing on national TV they have an incestuous relationship, and have a daughter.


Australia incest pair in TV plea
An Australian man and his daughter have asked for understanding after revealing on national TV they have an incestuous relationship, and have a daughter.

John Deaves, 61, appeared on the TV show 60 Minutes with daughter Jenny, 39, and nine-month-old Celeste - to whom he is both father and grandfather.

Last month a judge banned them from having sex with each other and revealed they had a child in 2001 who died.

But they insisted on the programme that they were "normal intellectual adults".

Mr Deaves said they both "had careers, had a normal life like everybody else".

He added: "But [we have] fallen in love with each other when we are biologically related, when we've discovered each other later in life."

Mr Deaves had left the family home when his daughter Jenny was a baby, and did not see her again for 30 years.

When the couple met, in 2000, they began a sexual relationship.

Ms Deaves told 60 Minutes she began to see John as a man first and a father second.

"I was looking at him, sort of going, oh, he's not too bad. Like you might look at a man across the bar at a nightclub," she said.

"John and I are in this relationship as consenting adults. We are just asking for a little bit of respect and understanding."

The couple each pleaded guilty to two charges of incest last month and were banned from having sex with each other.

According to the judge's ruling in the case, the couple had a child in 2001 who died from congenital heart disease shortly after birth.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7334649.stm

Published: 2008/04/07 14:52:51 GMT

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7334649.stm