Father and daughter appeal for acceptance of love

AN AUSTRALIAN woman who had a child with her father pleaded for acceptance of their illicit love as the couple appeared on national television with their baby girl after being convicted of incest.

Jenny Deaves was 31 when she was reunited with her father, John Deaves, who separated from her mother three decades before. Shortly afterwards, she had considered embarking on a sexual relationship with him, she told the Nine Network.

“John and I are in this relationship as consenting adults,” she told the 60 Minutes programme on Sunday night.

“We are just asking for a little bit of respect and understanding.”

The couple’s nine-month-old daughter, Celeste, to whom John Deaves is both father and grandfather, was also shown on the programme and appeared to be in sound health.

She is a third child, but also a half-sister, for Jenny Deaves, now 39, who has two other children from another relationship.

Jenny Deaves said not long after meeting her father, she began to see him as a man first and a 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.”

John Deaves, who is 61, said he knew it was illegal to have sex with his child but emotions soon overcame him.

“Emotions take over, as people no doubt realise, there are times during your life where emotions do rule the heart, it rules the head,” he said.

“I knew it was illegal, of course I knew it was illegal but you know, so what.”

Ms Deaves said the physical relationship with her father was like “a sexual relationship with any other man”.

For Mr Deaves the sexual relationship was “absolutely fantastic”.

The South Australian couple, who bear a striking resemblance to each other, were both placed on three-year good behaviour bonds on March 20 after being convicted of two counts of incest each, a spokeswoman for the South Australian Courts Administration Authority said.

The bonds disallow any further sexual activity between the pair.

The father and daughter claimed on air that they have 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,” said Ms Deaves.

Sentencing remarks published on the court’s website reveal that the couple had another child in 2001, but the infant died after only a few days due to a congenital heart disease.

District Court judge Steven Millsteed said the case was not typical because although father and daughter, the pair were “virtually strangers” when their relationship commenced.

“This is not a case where a father has violated his daughter and used his position of authority to take advantage of her powerlessness,” he said.

A police spokesman said they “were being monitored”.

Last month, a German man who has fathered four children with his mentally disabled sister lost a court bid to have his country’s incest law scrapped on the basis that they were consenting adults.

In that case, he had already served two years in prison and has refused to end the relationship, risking further jail time.