The Australian couple at the centre of the baby Gammy controversy met through a Chinese mail-order bride agency, it’s been revealed.
The Daily Mail reports that David Farnell — a convicted child sex offender — married Wendy Li in China in October 2004.
Website ChnLove Date lists the marriage as a ‘success story’, indicating the pair met through a Zhanjiang Happy Marriage Agency in Guangdong, China.
The website says of the match: “From the day they met to the day they got married were just 8 months. David and Miss Li were very responsible and sincere to their marriage.”
As Mamamia reported yesterday, the West Australian couple spoke out in a statement released to the Bunbury Mail yesterday, saying they were traumatised by the media attention on the controversy.
“This has been absolutely devastating for them,” the statement, delivered through a family friend, said.
The friend said the Farnells had never wanted to give surrogate baby Gammy up but that they ‘were told he would not survive and he had a day, at best, to live and to say goodbye.’
“They prayed for Gammy to survive but were told by doctors that he was too sick,” she said, claiming the couple had not been told the 6-month-old baby had down syndrome.
Fairfax reports that child protection services are investigating claims Mr Farnell is a convicted paedophile after police called them on Monday night.
Yesterday it was revealed he previously abused at least three young girls, as Perth Now reports.
Want to read more about Gammy? Try these:
Read more on the Australian couple’s statement here.
Mia Freedman writes: Could this be the real reason why Gammy’s parents abandoned him?
Updates on the Gammy story: Calls for the boy to receive an Australian passport, calls for surrogacy law reform and more.
Response from a parent of a child with Down Syndrome: To the Australian couple who abandoned their son with Down syndrome.
Mamamia’s first report on Gammy: The surrogate child an Australian couple didn’t want.
[post_snippet id=324408]
