Sentencing transcripts reveal that their daughter, Celeste, and Ms Deaves's two other children from a previous marriage were taken into care by South Australia's Department for Families and Communitiesbut had since been returned. South Australian District Court judge Steven Millsteed took into account the pair's early guilty pleas and the "consensual nature of your relationship" and recorded a single conviction for each of them.

They were released on a $500 good behaviour bond. According to the transcripts, Mr Deaves was married to Ms Deaves's mother about 40 years ago. She divorced him when he was serving a prison sentence for armed robbery, while Ms Deaves was three or four years old.

Mr Deaves's former wife did not encourage contact between him and his daughter, and it was about 30 years before they resumed contact. By about 2000, Mr Deaves was living with another wife and child at Yongala in South Australia and Ms Deaves was living with a former husband and two children, now nine and 11, in Sydney.

Ms Deaves took her two children to stay with Mr Deaves in 2000 for about three weeks, during which time they became attracted to each other but did not develop a physical relationship. Later in the year Mr and Ms Deaves each ended their marriages and began living together and moved to Rockhampton. The first count of incest related to the conception of the first child while the second related to their second, Celeste, who was born last year after the couple moved to Port Pirie in South Australia.

They then moved to Bordertown in South Australia where the couple attracted the attention of the Department for Families and Communities. "The police subsequently investigated the matter. When interviewed by police you both made full admissions," Judge Millsteed told the pair during sentencing.

Judge Millsteed said the offences were "atypical" cases of incest. "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. "Rather, this is a case of a mutually consensual union, formed by adults, who had previously had little contact.

"However, the offence of incest exists not merely to protect children from sexual abuse. In my view, other 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. Those factors assume significance in this case." Judge Millsteed acknowledged that as a condition of bail, Mr Deaves was banned from contacting Ms Deaves or her children but "this order has exacerbated your depression and caused you to attempt suicide on two occasions".

"I will not make it a condition of bond that you not see each other. In my view such a condition would be unfair," Judge Millsteed said. The pair were banned from sexual contact with each other as part of their bond.



Mr Deaves's former wife, Dorothy Deaves, disputed the couple's claim that they had no contact with each other for about 30 years and fell in love when they were virtually strangers to each other. She said she was married to Mr Deaves for 16 years "until he took off with her" in October 2000.

She claimed that, rather than being a stranger to her father, Ms Deaves had been present at their wedding reception in Sydney when she would have been about 15. "They were in contact all the time," Mrs Deaves, 69, said.

She said it had affected her deeply when Mr Deaves ended his third marriage to run off with his daughter. "Ever since it happened to a certain extent I have gotten over it but I was devastated for a long time," she said. "The whole thing is so disgusting you just don't know where to turn."