Birmingham woman had secret sex affair with long-lost dad after 20 years apart

Jul 17 2011 by Jeanette Oldham, Sunday Mercury

A DAUGHTER and her long-lost dad enjoyed an emotional reunion after 20 years apart – then embarked on a secret affair.

Nicola Yates, 26, tracked down real father Andrew Butler, 46, through the family-tracing website Genes Reunited.

But instead of developing a normal father-daughter relationship, the Birmingham pair fell in love and began living together as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Nicola, a pretty accounts administrator, and factory worker Butler are now facing jail after her mother and sister discovered the awful truth and alerted police.

The shamed pair pleaded guilty to two counts of having sex with an adult relative at Birmingham Crown Court on July 7. They will be sentenced next month.

Today, the Sunday Mercury can reveal the astonishing story of how a daughter’s quest to find her long lost dad led to an incestuous affair – and rocked an ordinary family to its core.

Flame-haired Nicola, from Castle Vale, began searching for her biological father in 2004, two decades after she last saw him when he split from her mother, Katrina.

The couple had married in the early 1980s.

Nicola was born in 1985 in Marston Green and the husband and wife also had a son before splitting up before 1990.

Katrina later remarried and she and her new husband had a daughter, Natalie, now aged 19, and two younger boys.

But those close to Nicola say she had long yearned to be reunited with her real dad – and she fatefully set out to find him in 2004.

She posted her contact details on Genes Reunited, a family tracing website used by millions of people worldwide.

And it was through the site that she and Butler were later brought together for the first time in more than 20 years.

Nicola, who by then was living in Yardley, was amazed to discover he had been living just a few streets away for years.

Sources claim the office worker, who was about 20 at the time, enjoyed a ‘highly charged, emotional reunion’ with her father, who was at that time in a relationship with a woman much closer to his own age.

At first there were no signs of how wrong their own unfolding relationship would become.

Sources say Nicola began spending increasing amounts of time with Butler, ostensibly in a bid to recapture the long-lost father-daughter bond that had been broken more than 20 years earlier.

But it is understood relatives gradually became concerned at the intensity of Nicola’s feelings for her natural father.

Relatives were later horrified to discover the young woman and Butler were harbouring an unimaginable secret – they had become illicit lovers.

A source said: “It just became known. Everyone around her and her family knew and were involved in trying to sort it out.

‘‘She didn’t pretend it hadn’t happened when the family found out.”

Nicola and Butler were arrested and first pleaded guilty to having sex with an adult relative at Birmingham Crown Court in May 2007.

The daughter was given a community order for 18 months and ordered to sign the Sex Offender Register for five years.

Butler received a four-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and was made subject of an 18-month supervision order. He was ordered to undergo a sex offender programme and to sign the Sex Offender Register for seven years.

By the end of 2007 Nicola was thought by friends and family to have put the forbidden love affair behind her.

Details she posted on social networking sites at the time showed she had a wide circle of friends, was looking forward to a forthcoming job interview, and enjoyed partying and sports.

But in 2008 her family’s worst nightmare returned when Nicola announced she had a ‘new boyfriend’ – but was reluctant to introduce him to her family.

Insiders say the then 23 year-old tried to keep her new man’s identity under wraps. Mum Katrina asked to meet him but Nicola ‘kept putting her off’.

It is now known that the daughter and dad were secretly living together.

Around the same time fun-loving Nicola updated her social networking sites, revealing a string of intimate facts about herself including that her favourite pastime was “sex, sex, and more sex”.

And five things she said she could not live without were: ‘‘Family, Andy, Mobile, Money, Straighteners.’’

Her ideal man, she posted, was someone with ‘a good sense of humour, fit body, good looks, nice dress sense’.

Tellingly, she also revealed on the sites that she was dating and loving ‘Andy’ and living with a ‘partner/spouse’.

The bold young woman even posted a provocative photograph of herself in which she was wearing only a black bra and pink knickers.

She wrote: “Hi everybody, this is my new profile because they blocked my other one. I hope everybody will add me and leave comments on my pictures again.

‘‘For those who don’t know me my name is Nikki, I’m 23 and from Birmingham. I live life to the max and love meeting new people and trying new things.

“I’m looking for people to have fun with, especially any couples who fancy a bit of fun with me and my boyfriend.”

Nicola’s younger sister Natalie, now aged 19, is understood to have become suspicious of her secretive behaviour after spotting her hugging and kissing a clearly older man.

And when Natalie stayed overnight at her sister’s home between 2008 and 2009 she made the awful discovery – after hearing her having sex with Butler.

Concerned for her only sister’s welfare, courageous Natalie then obtained documents and photographs from her sister’s home, sources close to the case say.

She also retrieved sexually explicit mobile phone images of Nicola and Butler together. She showed them to her mother who is said to have exclaimed in horror: ‘‘That’s my ex-husband!’’

Natalie and her mum rushed to confront Nicola but she would not let them into her home, sources linked to the investigation say.

Reeling from the discovery that Nicola had resumed her illegal sexual relationship with her own dad, her family alerted police.

The daughter and father were arrested in September last year. They pleaded guilty to having sex with an adult relative when they appeared at Birmingham Crown Court on July 7, in a case brought by Crown Prosecution Services crown advocate Madhu Rai.