Original subtitles

Imagine you meet your soulmate and fall head over heels in love.

There's only one catch.

The person you've fallen for is a member of your closest family.

It is a sort of boy meets girl fall in love sort of thing. It just happens to

that it's your own half -sipper.

You know, the feeling that someone has when they first fall in love with

somebody and then it fades, but that feeling hasn't faded.

I love when she touches me and kisses me and hugs me.

One thing led to another and we made love and I remember thinking that it

just felt so right.

This film follows two brother and sister couples over nine months.

Both couples are in the grip of a powerful, incestuous love.

Oh, it is just so hard being away from you.

It is a passion that will destroy marriages.

I never thought I would end up leaving my wife.

And see one couple prosecuted for incest.

The maximum sentence for the offence to which you're charged is life

imprisonment.

Can a love like this ever be right?

I don't understand what the big crime is. We're two human beings who are in

love.

Sweetheart, you're not allowed to do this.

Why? Because I'm your big brother.

Excuse me.

Nick and Danielle are half -brother and sister, but they grew up apart on

opposite sides of Scotland.

Nick was brought up by a foster family, and he only met his sister when he was

26 and she was 21.

Although at the time, Danielle was married and had a child, for her and

was love at first sight.

The first time I met Danielle, I just... I thought, wow.

I seem to remember on a walk, actually, down the golf course here, I actually

said to her, if you weren't my sister, I would just throw you in that sand and

kiss you.

Of course, I didn't at the time, and I thought, no, that's just not acceptable.

And I thought, why don't you?

Mm.

Within three weeks of meeting, Nick and Danielle had begun a secret sexual

relationship.

But it was not to remain a secret for very long.

We were actually on the couch making love and we heard a knock at the door.

Of course we just ignored it at the time and then we heard the knock again and

then again and then in walked mum.

And of course we were...

lying on the couch just with a quilt over us at this point, and she walked

through the living room, seen us, was quite shocked, called us a pair of

scumbaggers, and then walked back out.

And I got in a conversation with Mum later on that night on the telephone,

she said, look, if you come anywhere near Danielle, then I'm just going to go

the police.

And I said, well, there's no way I'm losing touch with my sister for you or

anyone else, so I'm going to see her whether you like it or not.

And she called the police.

For eight months, Nick and Danielle have been waiting to hear whether the

authorities will bring charges against them.

Over that time, Danielle's husband and daughter have moved out, and Nick has

moved in.

Their mother has disowned them.

Now they've finally received the news they've been dreading.

They're going to be prosecuted for the crime of incest.

Tonight, they have to hand themselves in to the police, ready for a court

appearance in the morning.

So what do you expect will happen tomorrow?

Well, from what we know, we'll be hopefully taken to court in the morning.

probably have to remain in our cell there until the case is called and then

speak to the judge in a private chamber by the sounds of it.

But we don't know entirely for sure.

And what do you think the judge might say?

Well, the lawyers said that it's quite likely that we're going to be separated

for the duration of the case.

Having been inseparable since they met nine months ago, when they part tonight,

Nick and Danielle have no idea when they'll see each other again.

In America, on the outskirts of Minneapolis,

Tom is beginning his day as he does every morning, by ringing his half

Stephanie.

Because they're both married with young children, they've had to keep their

relationship secret.

Good morning, sweetheart.

Morning, how are you? Good, how about you?

I'm doing all right.

Good, good.

How'd you sleep?

Oh...

I don't know how, but I know I slept because I had dreams.

I just miss you so much. It's just so

hard being away from you.

Maybe I can see you today, maybe.

Yeah, are you going to be going down to the city? I don't know yet.

I hope, I hope. It would be nice if I can come and see you.

Yeah.

All right, darling. I suppose I should let you go. I need to get to work.

Yeah. All right. Well, you have a good day at work, sweetie.

You too.

I'll be thinking about you all day.

Same here.

All right.

All right. I love you.

I love you too.

All right, darling.

Talk to you later.

Okay. Okay. Bye.

Bye.

Although Tom and Stephanie are half -siblings, they only met for the first

three years ago.

Almost immediately, they fell deeply in love and began an affair.

I can't get Stephanie out of my mind.

I think about her constantly.

I want to be with her always.

I don't think about Stephanie being my sister.

She's not my sister.

She doesn't feel like my sister at all. I just don't look at it that way. She's

not.

As hard as I try, she's not.

She's this wonderful, lovely, beautiful woman who I'm in love with.

Stephanie lives an hour away on the other side of town.

The relationship with Tom is just one of so much passion I feel for him and just

always wanting to be together.

Oh, he's everything to me.

He's romantic. He's funny. He's friendly. He's generous. He's everything

you know, he makes my marriage look like I've been living with my

roommates the last 15 years.

It's just hard not being with someone.

I'm in a life right now I don't want to be in.

I love my children.

I even love my wife, but I'm not in love with my wife.

I'm in love with Stephanie, and I want to be with her.

For three years, Tom and Stephanie have been struggling with the secrecy and the

separation.

Now they've decided the time is right to be together.

In Fife, on the east coast of Scotland, half -brother and sister Nick and

Danielle have been charged with incest.

After a night in the cells, they've been released on bail, but the conditions

that have been imposed by the court will have a dramatic impact on their lives.

Let me go out and bail on the conditions.

That I don't...

That I don't

have contact or see Nick until it's all over.

We are not allowed contact at all in any way, shape or form until the case is

solved effectively.

It's going to be very, very hard after not having them for 21 years and

then meeting them nine months ago and then getting ripped away from them.

I mean, what the hell right have they got everybody's family up for something

that's completely consented, non -harmful to anybody and no fucking right

in court?

The bail conditions take immediate effect.

Danielle and Nick will not even be allowed to speak or write to each other

a court hearing to decide their future.

This could take up to a year.

Danielle is left to pack up Nick's belongings for him.

I just want to go over and just hug her in close.

Make her feel safe, in effect.

And just, in a way, just sort of protect her from the big bad world that's

out there. And it just just positively helps.

In Minneapolis, Tom has been having an affair with his half -sister Stephanie

for the last three years.

They've both been married for 15 years, and they both have three young children.

Once a week, they manage to spend a few hours together.

Some people would look at us and think we're just cheating on our spouses.

Stephanie and I would be together.

Now we could, but because of our being related, society and our

spouses aren't going to understand.

Tom and Stephanie grew up not even knowing of each other's existence.

As Tom was adopted, before Daphne was born.

When I found out I was adopted, I was around 11 years old.

My parents were straightforward with me about it, and it wasn't really a big

deal, not to me.

But when I was 35 years old, all of a sudden, out of the blue, I decided to

look for my biological mother.

And I went on the Internet, and it was fairly easy to track her down.

I got a phone call from my mom, and she said, I want you to come over, and she

was real kind of mysterious, and I was like, okay, and then my brother and

sister showed up as well, and we knew something strange was going on.

My biological mom had me wait down in their den, and she called my siblings

and they walked down the stairs one by one.

The thing I remember the most is probably Stephanie.

I saw her, and everything else just kind of got pushed to the side.

I thought about her, and I wanted to be with her and be by her, and

the rest of the stuff didn't matter as much.

I went home and could not stop thinking about him.

I was with my sister, told me to quit talking about him, told me to kind of

over it.

She emailed me one day and said she had weird feelings about me.

And that was kind of an opening for me, and I told her I loved her.

We were both so excited and at the same time sort of feeling really kind

of devastated because we thought, you know, this is crazy. How could anything

like this ever work? Nobody would ever accept this.

I think we both felt like, what are we going to do?

It's now been three weeks since Nick and Danielle were separated and they're

living on opposite sides of Scotland.

Their court case can't move forward until their solicitors have examined all

paperwork.

Nick has moved to Glasgow.

and has been disowned by almost all of his family and friends.

Finding places to stay is not easy, and neither is being without Danielle.

Living with Danielle is like living for a part of myself basically.

I mean I've never felt so complete and so actually at home and at peace as I've

felt with Danielle in my life.

And I don't think...

Really, I'm going to find that anywhere else. I mean, she is my family, and

she's the only person in my family I'm even vaguely close to. So it's like

losing a part of yourself.

Over in Fife, Danielle is finding it equally hard to cope.

Dear sweetheart, I know I'm never going to be able to send you this letter.

But I wanted to write anyway because I love you so much and have so much to

you.

I can't believe they've stopped us from seeing each other. It is so unfair and

it is wrong to keep family apart.

I can't explain the grief I have right now.

However long they keep us apart, I will wait for you.

Until then, my teddy bear, I love you with all my heart and all my soul.

Yours forever, my darling.

Love, Cub.

Oh, I've had my good days and I've had my days that I would like to just end

all.

I'm just feeling as though I'm on the edge of cracking up.

I'm not eating.

I'm eating very little. I'm not sleeping very well.

Genuinely lovesick, really.

In what ways are you missing Nick the most?

I'm missing his arms.

I'd love his arms just to be wrapped round me.

Nick and Danielle's love affair began when they were reunited after a

apart.

Nick was fostered at the age of one because of problems at home.

He always knew of his half -fifth of existence and of the child he met

once, but only for a few minutes.

When he was reunited with her years later, the connection was instant.

We bonded so quickly it was actually unreal.

I mean, we were sort of cuddling a lot. We basically didn't put each other down

in the first week, effectively, because Mother actually commented on it more

than once.

And then we got into sort of tickle fights and all the rest of it. And I

even within sort of seconds per day, I think both of us were starting to

actually get sort of romantic thoughts in our heads. I mean, I certainly was on

more than one occasion sort of looking into her eyes just tempted to kiss her,

but obviously didn't.

Things developed into a sexual relationship fairly quickly, actually.

We ended up sort of becoming very close and ended up basically making love in

the bed.

I mean, it was in some ways weird, yes, because of the fact that if you start

thinking that she's your little sister and you're thinking you're making love

and you're thinking, pardon, what's going on here?

But there was such an intense feeling between us that it felt...

Natural, actually, in a lot of senses.

Well, to put it another way, it didn't feel wrong at the time.

Confusing, yes.

Wrong, no.

Nick still feels confused about his relationship, but thinks he may have

reason for his feelings.

A phenomenon called genetic sexual attraction.

GSA happens to close family members who've grown up apart and are reunited

adulthood.

It can affect parents and their grown -up children, as well as siblings.

These reunions can release powerful feelings, which sometimes have sexual

overtones.

Most people don't act on them.

But for some, GSA can lead to an actual sexual relationship.

Nick has found a psychiatrist who may be able to help him understand his

feeling.

Dr.

Maurice Greenberg is one of the few experts in the field.

So intense.

I mean, there's times with Danielle, I mean, she kind of feels like everything.

I mean, there's some times, I mean, if I'm feeling quite sort of down or

insecure when we're together, that, I mean, just actually cuddling into her

naked and just curling into her chest, actually, I almost feel like a kid

It sounds as if you actually couldn't bear being without each other.

Yeah, I mean, basically we can't. I mean, I think probably with the

in some ways I would just like to run away completely at times.

But, I mean, in some ways it was complete torture not being with her

just wanted to share my entire life with her, basically.

And did you make any efforts to tear yourself away?

Ah, several times I've said, look, why don't we just try to be brother and

sister?

I think the longest I managed, nine hours, frankly.

I can't.

I mean, I find it very difficult to, unless we're physically apart, to

not be very close. I mean, I think both of us are very scared of actually losing

that sort of closeness, that intimacy, that connection we have.

Are you wanting someone to tell you what to do beyond the court?

Because in a way that's... In some ways, yeah. I mean, in some ways I would love

somebody just to come down and say, no, this is what you should do and get on

with it because it would be so much easier, I suppose, rather than having to

deal with all this myself.

The fact is that people do have extremely strong feelings about it. They

that it's wrong.

It's complicated in our society because...

Incest is often associated with sexual abuse, and so it's associated with

taking advantage of children.

And this is an unusual situation in the sense that it's two adults making

decisions for themselves.

My own view is that it doesn't help the matter bringing in the police. Actually,

it makes life very complicated.

In America, Tom and Stephanie have now decided on a plan, which should allow

them to be together.

Tom will leave his family in a few months' time and get a small apartment.

Three months after that, Stephanie will also move to a place of her own, taking

her three children with her.

A year later, once the dust has settled, they plan to move in together.

So January is a big step.

A big step for both of us.

I know. We'll have to, towards the end of the year, start thinking about

things like what you're going to say to her and

maybe talk to a lawyer about how to handle everything. I don't

know anything about...

People getting divorced.

I don't either.

It's kind of scary.

Because we don't really have anybody on our side, really.

No. There's nobody to turn to. There's nobody that's going to accept us.

We're kind of on our own. We are on our own.

We make it. Just picture, I always picture us 15, 20 years from now with

this behind us.

It's going to be nice, darling.

There is one thing that Tom and Stephanie are leaving

out of their plans for the future.

Having a baby together.

I would love to have children someday, but it's not the responsible thing to

And we agreed that we never would.

Ultimately, our end point is to be together, to live together like

husband and wife, even though we know we can't get married legally.

I think our future is going to be a bright one.

I foresee us being together in a different state with a fresh start,

old together.

It is now three months since Danielle and Nick were charged with incest and

forced to live apart.

I think people shouldn't judge as much as they do because of the fact that it's

not as black and white as everybody seems to think it is.

I think brothers and sisters with this kind of relationship, yes, they go

through a lot of persecution, a lot of pressure and a lot of worry.

They're very lucky to have that love.

Both Danielle and Nick are desperate to be back together, and the quickest way

to end their separation is to simply plead guilty.

This is what Danielle has decided to do.

In Glasgow, Nick has come to the same conclusion.

I've been basically compiling evidence for the case.

with the thought of actually pleading guilt about mitigating circumstances

on genetic sexual attraction.

This is from a website, geneticsexualattraction .com.

While incest committed on children is rightly condemned as child sex abuse,

of the worst crimes imaginable, which I completely agree with, relations between

adult siblings are less easily condemned when the science of genetic sexual

attraction, summarised as GSA, is taken into account.

There are many scientists who argue that because of the powerful psychological

forces involved, adult incest should be decriminalised when it involves siblings

who have been separated as children and not brought up together.

And I think, I mean, that, to me, sums up the whole situation.

It's not a normal family situation. It's not a case of we're all going to go out

and make love with our sisters or go and have sex with our mothers. It's not

like that. And I think...

That is one of the important things that the public need to realise.

Nick and Danielle are both going to inform their solicitors of their

But they have no idea what the repercussions of a guilty plea might be.

See, I would like to plead guilty.

As you know, I would like this all of undone when I would like my guilty plea

as soon as possible.

I mean, the sooner the better. I mean, I would like it to appear in court like

tomorrow if possible, but obviously that's not practical.

You'll be asked to appear in court.

Right.

The court will accept your plea and the maximum sentences which are available to

the court are quite high.

Believe it or not, the maximum sentence for the offence to which you're charged

is life imprisonment.

I think what we're going to do here is present the phenomenon of GSA to the

judge. The court could impose a custodial sentence or, on the other

it's heard all the factors, including the GSA element of this, then the court

likely to take a more lenient view.

I don't have a crystal ball. I can't give any guarantees.

But I think in the...

The circumstances we have here at Custodial Sentences is unlikely.

Both solicitors now have to prepare for the guilty pleas to be entered.

Once that's happened, Nick and Danielle will go to court to receive their

sentences.

In Minneapolis, Tom is putting his plan into action.

He's found an apartment a short drive from Stephanie's house and will be

in three weeks' time.

Yeah, like brown and then kind of that bluish green.

I do think you need some plants.

I know, I know I do. I'm not saying you should buy them from here, but... I

don't want real plants, I want fake ones. I would get fake ones and then you

dust them before I come over and visit.

No, you can dust them when you come over and visit. Oh, okay.

This is nice.

What do you think?

I like this.

I could handle this.

I think we've got to rock the same way, though.

You're too fast.

Nice.

I don't understand what the big...

Crime is. We're two human beings who are in love.

We never grew up together.

I never knew she existed. We have different biological fathers.

Didn't know each other existed.

No.

I couldn't picture her not being in my life. We don't look alike. We don't

alike. We don't have really anything alike. I just, you know, we don't see

the big deal is.

Well, Stephanie and I likened ourselves to like a gay couple.

10, 15 years ago, it was taboo and society didn't understand and were

ignorant. But nowadays, it's commonplace. Some blankets and stuff,

I definitely have hope. I mean, I'm doing this today to throw one stone out

there and see if it gets any reaction and hope we can make people see we're

ordinary people.

You know, loving, caring parents.

And just by chance have to be related.

It has been four weeks since Nick and Danielle went to see their solicitors.

Since then, there's been a change of plan.

Instead of entering the guilty pleas, The lawyers are now trying to get the

dropped completely on the grounds that this is a victimless crime.

Danielle's solicitor is also raising the fact that as she had become infertile

by the time she met Nick, there was no risk of pregnancy.

For Danielle, the delay means more time waiting and more time alone.

If he knew, even if he says, look, it's not dropped, and

Mr Seabright even gave me a court date, and for a couple of weeks' time, I would

know.

It's the not known.

Danielle was expecting a decision about a week ago, and I have been phoning

the fiscal's office in Kirkcaldy more or less every day.

to try and get a decision and no decision has been made yet. So I'm very

aware, having spoken to Danielle, that she is exceedingly impatient about a

decision one way or the other.

Nick is also frustrated by the delay.

He set up a meeting with a journalist to tell their story in the hope that this

will raise awareness of GSA.

I know there's quite an element of risk in going to the press, but I feel it's

something that people need to know about.

My own experience with family and friends tends to have been that most of

just stick their head in the sand and just say, no, I'm having nothing to do

with that sort of thing.

Nick has come to see a reporter from the Daily Record, a major Scottish

newspaper.

It's going to be quite an unusual case, this, if it comes to court, Nick.

And I know you know that already, otherwise you wouldn't have contacted

You felt, you know, obviously attracted to Danielle.

So...

Is it fair to say that matters progressed from there and that this

became a sexual relationship?

Yeah, that's fair to say that. Right.

And I'm guessing that under the circumstances, this would be a... I'll

word secret.

A secret relationship between yourself and Danielle.

Yes. Right.

What was the actual event which led to this relationship becoming not secret?

Basically, my mother had actually walked in the house while we were in an

intimate situation, basically.

Right.

Whereabouts did this happen?

That happened at my sister's house.

So your mother arrives unexpectedly, and from what she sees, there can be no

doubt in her mind that there's an intimate sexual relationship taking

Yes. Right.

You have researched this issue of incest, would that be fair to say?

Do you feel that that research has led to a position whereby it

decriminalises you?

In the eyes of the law, obviously, it's still a crime, but I think there is a

lot more research needed to be done under the circumstances where there's

any obvious harm between the two parties that are actually primarily involved.

And therefore I feel that perhaps there is room for an adjustment not actually

making incest legal but taking into account the situation where you have

siblings that haven't met up.

It's January, and as planned, Tom has left his wife and three children.

Tonight, he's moving into his new home.

This is it.

Not much.

I'm officially moved out of my house.

On my own.

The separation.

My wife had lots of suspicions about whether I was in love with Stephanie or

not.

I told her the truth.

My wife told her best friend about me and Stephanie.

Everything.

She didn't think she left out any details.

So it didn't take long to spread like wildfire. And I'm kind of the talk of

town.

I've had friends who've cared.

who told me that they'd be there for me and they'd want to talk, if I ever

wanted to talk or anything. But then I've had people who I've known for 20

that give me the cold shoulder.

That the kids don't deserve this shit.

But I can't help it.

I've got to live my life.

They'll understand.

They'll understand when they're older.

Boy, this GSA really screws you up. It can anyways.

I was drawn so...

into all this shit with Stephanie.

Oh, my God. I haven't stopped thinking about her for three years, though.

Not for a second.

Yeah, it's destructive, all right.

I never thought I would end up leaving my wife.

I never thought, I never dreamed of putting my kids through this.

Giving up, you know.

I have a beautiful house and all that, and I gave all that up for one better, I

could care less about all that shit. I don't care about, sorry, about all the

apartments, and I don't care about that. My main thing I want, I want to be

happy.

I want to be with Stephanie.

I'd give up my house, my company, I'd give it all up again, twice, three

so I could be with her.

There's finally been a decision on Danielle and Nick's case.

It will not be dropped.

Seven months after they handed themselves over to the police, they've

been allowed to enter their guilty pleas.

It will be a further month before they're sentenced.

With their guilty pleas now in, the tabloids are free to report on their

relationship.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Both The Sun and Daily Record do big stories on Nick and Danielle.

But the focus of the articles is incest.

There is no mention of GSA in either paper.

Absolutely chronic.

Yeah. A woman and her half -brother who were convicted of incest want to marry.

It was revealed last night.

Danielle Heaney, 22, had a string of romps, that's wonderfully put on my

don't think, with Nick Cameron, until their mother caught them in a clinch and

called cops.

A brother says he'd been convicted of incest after the horrified mother caught

them in a clinch and called the police.

They don't have a clue. They really don't have a clue. The newspapers don't

a clue. Most people that actually even know about this don't have a clue.

And nobody has any wish to actually understand it any further. Well, piss

and fuck off and stay out of my goddamn life because you're a waste of goddamn

space.

Stephanie is on her way to visit Tom at his apartment for the first time.

Now he's moved, it's her turn.

But Stephanie no longer thinks she'll be ready to leave her husband in three

months' time, as planned.

I don't want to put pressure on myself. I know things are going to take time.

I just realize it's a lesson in patience and that it's better not...

get myself upset trying to rush through things i would rather try to keep things

as peaceful as possible and if that means by taking it slow and making good

decisions i would much rather do that i think if someone feels pressure it's tom

feeling like come on let's go you know i'm free now let's go and

and i'm not and so um

He tries real hard to understand.

I don't know how heavy you'll be

at once. Do you want to do something to get you through?

I will, and I will cook you something nice with it. Okay. Thank you, thank

They're not the best set in the world, but I think that someday when we're

together, we'll go buy like the $500 set of pants that we'll have, and then

we'll have them until we're like 80.

Oh, thank you. Sure.

After

just

a few hours together, it's time for Stephanie to return to her family.

Time.

Time is my worst enemy when it comes to me and Stephanie.

I'm going to have to wait until her kids get older, at least for

another year, at least, before she can move on and find some independence for

herself.

So, yeah, there's a lot of waiting to do.

But I feel good about what I did.

About the moving on part, anyways.

The day that Nick and Danielle have both been waiting for has finally arrived.

They're on their way to court to be sentenced.

I'm faking, I'm just, I'm actually petrified of whatever outcome this judge

got for me.

The best case scenario is the judge says, no, this is a ridiculous job. The

worst case scenario is I go to jail for the next X months or years, whatever it

is.

Nick and Danielle appear side by side before the judge, and their lawyers

present genetic sexual attraction as a mitigating factor in the case.

They are both sentenced for 12 months probation and will not have to serve any

time in prison.

After 244 days apart, their separation is over, and Nick can finally move back

home.

Nick and Danielle are now free to continue their relationship, as long as

don't have sex.

Hi.

Oh, yes.

I'm ready to die.

It's a great feeling when you actually feel you belong.

In some ways, it was kind of like I never actually left in the first place,

because nothing really changed between us.

We still love each other very much, we still care for each other.

Obviously, I mean, the sexual intercourse has stopped because of the

obviously, the courts have got involved, but we still keep a very close

relationship and very intimate relationship, but not overstepping that

Temptation is definitely there.

However, what I keep thinking about is actually the court date itself.

when you're looking at that judge, you're thinking, OK, oh dear, help.

I do not want to find myself in that position again, ever, frankly.

I don't agree with the way it's been dealt with, but it has been dealt with

way and I need to accept that.

If I'd known about GSA before, I think forewarned is forearmed.

And I don't think...

It would have happened because I probably wouldn't have let it happen.

But I still love her and that is not going to change for anybody.

To find out more about the issues raised in this programme, visit the website at

channel4 .com slash cuttingedge.

Next up, the brand new series of My Name is Earl.