An adopted woman found her biological father at 23, but their reunion sparked a forbidden romance leading to arrest warrant

A woman has opened up about a years-long affair with her biological father that resulted in a son, criminal charges, and an arrest warrant that followed her across two countries. She shared her account in an interview with The Times, speaking under the pseudonym Sophia Greenwood, as reported by The Tab.

Sophia was born in 1965 and placed for adoption through a birthing home attended by her 18-year-old mother. She grew up with a family in Yorkshire and had no contact with her biological parents until she was 23, when she set out to find them. Her reunion with her birth mother went well. The one with her father, Michael, did not stay simple for long.

Over months of letters and phone calls, the two developed what Sophia describes as an intense emotional bond. “We spoke about psychology, philosophy, art and life itself. I felt understood in a way I never had before,” she wrote in her account. When they eventually met in person, the relationship became romantic and sexual. She moved to Australia to be with him.

The secret they kept and the arrest that followed

Sophia and Michael lived as a couple but concealed the nature of their relationship from everyone around them. She invented a fictional ex-boyfriend to account for her pregnancy. They installed a separate phone line so her parents would never accidentally hear a man’s voice in the house. “Every ring filled me with anxiety,” she recalled. Their son, James, was born healthy in 1994.

During the pregnancy they were privately worried about genetic risks, given that children born to close biological relatives have a higher chance of inherited disorders. James had none. Sophia returned to England when James was 15 months old, saying a “shadow” had fallen over the relationship that she could not live with anymore. The years that followed were, in her words, “emotionally brutal.”

Friends and family were horrified when they learned the truth. It is not the first time a complicated relationship story has drawn attention online. The distance between her and Michael grew, which affected their son directly. Then came the legal consequences. A former partner of Michael’s reported the relationship to police. He was arrested and handed a suspended sentence for what was legally classified as incest.

An arrest warrant was also issued for Sophia, and UK police interviewed her, though no charges were filed. Still, the warrant meant she could not return to Australia for years, complicating her relationship with James. The situation eventually resolved when both of her sons, one from Michael and one from another man, wanted to live together in Australia. Sophia consulted lawyers, and the Australian authorities withdrew the charges. She now lives in Perth, near both of her sons.

Her relationship with Michael has also settled into something functional, though not romantic. She describes it now as more like “extended family.” As for regret, her answer is complicated. “Yes, because I would never knowingly choose the pain, secrecy and emotional fallout that followed. But also no, because the relationship brought deep love and connection at a time when neither of us understood the psychological forces involved,” she wrote.

Sophia frames her experience as a case of genetic sexual attraction, or GSA, a documented phenomenon where biological relatives who are separated at birth and meet as adults sometimes form intense emotional and sexual bonds.