GRAHAM Spink is starting a jail term for incest today after having a sexual relationship with his daughter lead to the birth of two children.Spink, found guilty of two counts of incest last month, was told the crimes he committed with his daughter Kerry Spink were so serious only a prison sentence would be sufficient to mark their severity.

GRAHAM Spink is starting a jail term for incest today after having a sexual relationship with his daughter lead to the birth of two children.

Spink, found guilty of two counts of incest last month, was told the crimes he committed with his daughter Kerry Spink were so serious only a prison sentence would be sufficient to mark their severity.

Kerry Spink, 25, was also found guilty of two offences of incest, and was given a two-year community rehabilitation order because of her age and the two children who rely on her.

Judge Peter Thompson, sitting at Bury St Edmunds Crown Court, yesterday told Graham Spink, 48, formerly of Cleveland Road, Lowestoft, and his daughter, who still lives at the address, he had sympathy with them because one of their children had died.

He said the surviving child, a three-year-old boy, would be a victim for life.

"He will suffer a stigma which is incalculable. It will go through the whole of its life with the knowledge that its parents were father and daughter."

Judge Thompson said the father and daughter had both been convicted of entering into a sexual relationship between December 2000 and May last year knowing they were father and daughter.

"This mixed blood not only carries a social bar but a medical bar because it is known the children of people closely related carry a big risk of suffering from congenital defects."

The court was told it was not congenital problems which led to the death of one of the couple's children.

Judge Thompson told Graham Spink he accepted the defendant had genuine affection for his daughter and that she was not a child when their sexual relationship began.

He said: "A prison sentence is necessary to mark the seriousness of the matter and you need to be punished for the offences you knew you were committing over a long period of time."

He told Kerry Spink he recognised she was the sole carer for two children, one of them the surviving child of the relationship with her father, and a jail term would leave them in care.

The judge, who said there was a danger of the relationship continuing, stressed that if the community rehabilitation order was breached in such a way the young mother would be brought before him again and would face a jail term.

He added: "I am treating you in a lenient way. You were the junior partner."

During the trial of the father and daughter at Ipswich Crown Court, the jury heard scientific evidence that Graham Spink was "very likely" to have been Kerry's natural father.

But the jury heard Graham Spink had disputed Kerry was his and he had not been a father to her while she was growing up. Both denied having sex with each other knowing they were father and daughter.

Matthew McNiff, for Graham Spink, said neither his client or his daughter intended to rekindle their relationship. He said the father had moved out of their home in Cleveland Road following their conviction.

Andrew Thompson, for Kerry Spink, said there was no suggestion she was anything other than a capable mother and there had been no moves by the social services to have her surviving children removed from her care.