Father of 22 children by 11 women is spared jail to look after baby



Raymond Hull, from Springkell, Cumbria, was handed 18 months in jail

But a judge suspended the sentence after being told about his baby

The 58-year-old says women queue up to sleep with him

Yet Hull hasn't worked for 10 years and lives off benefits

He claims he suffers from a bad back - from running around after his kids



Hull's latest child is with 26-year-old Emma McNeil, who works in a bakery

She said: ' I was thrilled when I fell pregnant with Barry'

A jobless man who claimed to have fathered 22 children by 11 women was yesterday spared jail for dealing drugs – after telling a judge he needed to help care for his youngest.

Raymond Hull, 58, who has been married only once and has lived off benefits for a decade, insisted ‘I just love kids’, but admitted he was in contact with only ‘about 12’ of them.

Despite police finding a stash of cannabis and text messages from customers, a judge accepted he was helping to raise child number 22 – seven-month-old Barry – while his partner returned to work.

'I just love kids': Raymond Hull, who was spared jail for dealing drugs, with his 22nd and youngest child Barry

With ‘considerable hesitation’ the judge went on to impose a suspended sentence.

Afterwards Hull – who has a series of convictions dating back four decades – defended his unconventional lifestyle, saying he had ‘never been short of offers’.

‘I just love kids,’ he said. ‘I don’t regret anything, even though I don’t speak to them all. Some of them don’t even know I’m their dad.’ And he bragged: ‘I don’t know what it is about me, but I’m never short of offers.

Raymond Hull narrowly missed time behind bars when his 18-month jail sentence was suspended to allow him to care for his youngest son Barry

‘It’s just my luck that every time I have a one-night stand, the girl ends up getting pregnant.

'I've never had to chase after women. I'm easy going, they are always chasing me.



'If it's tidy, you don't knock it back, do you? '



Hull claims to have fathered his first child when he was 16, but according to local birth records his eldest, John, was born when he was 19. Later that year, in 1975, he married John’s mother, Patricia, then just 17, and over the next nine years they had four more children – Raymond Jr, now 37, Joseph, 36, Adrian, 34, and Rebecca, 29.

‘I only know one or two of their birthdays, but they don’t mind. One of the girls got a sister for her birthday one year,’ he recalled yesterday.



The couple split up and Hull is listed as the father of three children – Leon, now 23, Rianna, 22, and Kane, 20 – by his next partner.

Two years ago he set up home in the Cumbrian village of Aspatria with a bakery worker less than half his age, 26-year-old Emma McNeil, and last year she gave birth to a baby boy, Barry. However, when he appeared in court this week he claimed to have fathered a total of 22 children.

Explaining how he fathered so many children by so many women, he said yesterday: ‘I’ve only been married once. I’ve got five kids with one woman; three with another; three with another; and three with another. I’ve got two kids with one woman and little Barry with Emma.

‘The others were just one each with different women.

'Some of the girls were happy to give the relationship a go, others did not want anything to do with me after they got pregnant. I still keep in touch with all the women now though. I get on better with them now we've split.



'I agreed with some of my exes now that if they get married to someone else, and another man raises the kid, it is not my kid anymore. I see 14 of my kids who know I am their dad all the time'.

Hull hasn’t worked for ten years because of a bad back and says 'it must be from running round after all these kids all these years'.



A picture of Hull was once placed on Facebook of him clutching a condom and smiling, and his son Raymond Jr posted: 'You wanna learn how to use them.'



The house of father-of-22 Raymond Hull: His most recent offspring is just seven-months-old, while he claims his eldest is 39 Carlisle Crown Court, where a judge decided to suspend Hull's jail sentence so he could look after his youngest child

He claimed to be in debt – but his baby son was playing with an iPad when a reporter visited this week. Hull, who also claims to have 19 grandchildren, was arrested after police raided his terraced home last May and discovered cannabis worth £350.

Examination of his mobile phone revealed a text message telling a customer there would be a delay in supplying drugs due to Barry’s impending birth.

Hull admitted using cannabis to help with his own medical problems at Carlisle Crown Court, but claimed he only sold to friends to cover costs. However, Judge Paul Batty QC dismissed Hull’s claims as a ‘cock and bull story’. Hull then abandoned his story, choosing not to give evidence in support of it.

In mitigation, Anthony Wilson said Hull had ‘a number of medicinal conditions’ including breathing problems, back pains and frequent chest infections which would make any time in prison difficult.

He suggested that a suspended sentence could be imposed so that Hull could stay at home and look after the baby while his partner went back to work.

Judge Batty imposed an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years. He also put Hull under a night-time curfew for the next six months and ordered him pay £200 which will be taken out of his benefits.