VIC man had twin daughters through surrogacy so he could sexually abuse them: police

A Victorian man has had daughters via surrogacy so he could sexually exploit them. The unnamed 49-year-old man pleaded guilty to sexually abusing the infant twins and his two young nieces, aged 4 and 6, on Thursday.

Sydney Morning Herald reports that the man was already abusing his nieces from NSW when he spent $44,000 to have the twins conceived overseas via surrogate using a donor egg. According to records, he had clear intention of sexually abusing the babies when he started the process. The girls were born in March 2014 in Asia using an egg donor from Ukraine.

The babies were only 27 days old when he started abusing them. This went on for seven months.

The Australian Federal Police said he was also found to have been accessing child pornography for decades. The man was known on child abuse forums by the name of Candy, and even suggested to his wife that one of the twins should be name Candy as well. He apparently told other members of the forums his intention to abuse his daughters.

He and his wife allegedly boasted that they had helped dozens of Australian couples have children. The man was initially uninterested in parenthood and had even asked his wife to have an abortion in the early 90s when she fell pregnant, according to federal prosecutor Krista Breckweg. But he changed his mind in 2009 when he started abusing his nieces. His wife suggested they try surrogacy in 2012 after they failed to have children anymore and were unable to adopt.

His wife of 26 years, according to AFP, was not aware of the man’s actions and behaviour and is not complicit in the crime.

The man pleaded guilty to 37 charges that include the production of almost 17,000 child abuse images and videos. Almost 300 of those images featured the twin girls, who are not in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services.

He was found out after an image of an unidentified victim was sent to the police in November 2014. The victim was one of the man’s nieces. She and her sister had both been abused by their uncle after he rekindled a relationship with his estranged brother.

The man is currently awaiting sentencing.