Meet the Brit dads who were hunted down & now pay for kids they abandoned overseas – as time’s up for rest to be exposed

BABIES born to British ‘sex tourists’ and poverty-stricken women in the Philippines are being abandoned by their British fathers – but time is running out for them. In an exclusive series – Looking for Dad: The Children of Britain’s Sex Tourists – we reveal how errant dads are being hunted down as a revolutionary organisation uses DNA to track them down and make them pay for their desperate children. Twin sisters Madeline delos Santos and her twin sister Melanie Yeates, 25, only recently met their British father Credit: Dave Tacon The twins spent time with their father, Roy, 80, and let go of their hatred towards his abandonment READ PART ONE OF OUR EXPLOSIVE NEW SERIES, LOOKING FOR DAD: THE CHILDREN OF BRITAIN’S SEX TOURISTS READ PART TWO OF OUR EXPLOSIVE NEW SERIES, LOOKING FOR DAD: THE CHILDREN OF BRITAIN’S SEX TOURISTS Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! But of course, not every British dad fathered a child through a sex worker – or chose to walk away. Journalist and charity worker Margaret Simons tells how some families made it work. JUST before Christmas, identical twins Madeline and Melanie delos Santos met their father for the first time in 22 years. The 25-year-olds had spent decades desperate for a relationship with their British dad, a retired civil engineer. I head a charity that helped track down their father. But contact was sparse after our investigators tracked him down. Then, out of the blue, he told them he was coming to Angeles and wanted to see them. Most read in The Sun They arranged to meet at his hotel for breakfast. Madeline says she walked into the room, saw her father’s back and recognised him straight away, even though she hadn’t seen him since she was a toddler. She says: “In that moment I realised I did need him, though I had told myself I didn’t. I realised that I am now complete. And all of the questions, all of my anger and hatred towards him, all of it vanished in a second. It was all gone.” Why had their dad, who we will name Roy, chosen this moment to visit? The twins don’t know. Says Melanie: “Maybe because he’s old. Maybe he realised it is his responsibility to show up.” Twenty-five years ago, Roy was working in the Philippines and met Esperanza delos Santos, or Espy as she is known to her family, in a bar on Fields Avenue. He fell for her. When he was transferred to Bali, Espy moved with him. She returned home when she was seven months pregnant and gave birth to the twins. The family has a faded picture of the Christening, with Roy holding one of the babies. But then, when the children were still toddlers, the relationship failed, and Roy left. The family tell me that, to start with, he sent money each month. He provided them with a letter confirming the twins were his children and consenting to them using his family name. Then, on his retirement, he made one last payment – 1.5 million pesos, (£21,000), with the instruction that it be used to buy a house for his girls. Roy gave what he thought was fair. It is more than many fathers do. But what he gave is also almost certainly much less than he would have had to give, by law, had his daughters been born in Britain. The girls were raised by their extended family, and in particular their grandmother, the family matriarch. They were able to attend a private school and gain a decent education, thanks to an uncle sending home remittances from his job as a waiter in Dubai. But underlying the family say there was a hurt and abandonment. Journalist and charity boss Margaret Simons, 64, is helping the lost children connect with family Credit: Dave Tacon Hundreds of British men flock to the Philippines every year When the twins were 11, their grandmother allegedly wrote to Roy asking for more money to pay school fees. She says he wrote back that he had no job and no income. A letter seen by The Sun reads: “We cannot avoid a difficult decision to make about the twins. With both of us without money and still some years to go before they are independent, the only option I can think of is adoption. I hate to say [this] but what else can we do?” I first met Melanie and Madeline in 2018, just after they turned eighteen. They were gorgeous – smart, thoughtful and kind. But lack of money meant they had to abandon their education and seek work. All the girls wanted was to know their father. They weren’t after his money. At the twins’ request, the charity I run tracked down Roy, who was living a middle-class life in the Home Counties, and rang him to tell him about his daughters’ request. After a few days and some emails, he rang the girls, and they had a good conversation and agreed to keep in touch. But the contact proved sporadic. It was always the girls seeking him, tracking him. He never initiated contact – until last year. After I wrote about the twins several years ago, Madeline was sponsored by an architect who read my article. This good samaritan paid her university fees, and last year she graduated as an architect, and now works for an Angeles City architectural firm. Melanie has a job as a marketing assistant for a motorcycle dealer. And then their father came to visit. Roy spent three days in Angeles City, and the girls spent as much time with him as they could, sharing every meal. He met their mother again. That was bittersweet. He did not recognise her. For the girls, it was a revelation. They noticed mannerisms and habits of thought they had in common. They share his chin. Madeline recognised that “we share a certain way of thinking. A mindset.” He gave them an explanation, of sorts, for why he had left them behind as tiny children. The girls have asked that the details be kept confidential for their mother’s sake. Madeline said: “He has a point. I don’t agree with what he did, but I understand better.” Nevertheless, she has a message for British fathers of Filipino children: “Have a sense of responsibility. Don’t hide your children, because it’s important for them to be proud of themselves and to know who they are.” And to the many other children of British fathers, she says: “Don’t lose hope. You are worth something just by yourself. And one day you may find your father.” Thankfully, not all British men who have children in the Philippines abandon them. David, now 69, who has asked us not to use his surname, first came to the Philippines in 1981 when he was working for a resources trading company. David did not pay for sex. He married a Filipino he met while working in South Asia, but they broke up. Over the years, he travelled back and forth to the Philippines, and when he was in his early 40s met 27 year old Jessica Gutierrez, a waitress at a backpacker restaurant, who became his girlfriend. Melanie works in marketing at a motorcycle company Credit: Dave Tacon David, who fathered a son with a 27-year-old, has stepped up and supports his child Credit: Dave Tacon He stayed with her for over a year, ending up managing the restaurant in which she worked. Then she told him she was carrying his child. Their relationship had ended, and she was assuming he would abandon them and go back to London. David knew that was all too common a scenario, but he wanted to be different. “I decided I wouldn’t go that route,” he said. “I was in my early 40s. I didn’t have a kid. My brother didn’t have kids. “There was just something in me that said, ‘I want this. It is the right thing.’” He asked for and obtained a DNA test to confirm the child was his, and committed to supporting him come what may. His son William Gutierrez was born in 2000. By now, David was working in the UK, but visited about every eighteen months, and paid to support William. His mother helped as well and brought birthday and Christmas gifts for the grandchild she had never met in person. David says: “I didn’t know him very well when he was a young kid, which I think actually was an advantage because, put it this way, women are far better with young children than men are. That’s a biological fact. So I missed the toddler tantrums and the nappies and everything like that.” But he paid for private schools and medical needs, sending money whenever it was needed – he estimates the cost of around £250 per month. Then, in 2019, he got a job in Manila running a call centre and began to get to know his son. It was life-affirming. William, now 25, recently graduated as an electrical engineer. He lives in Cebu, and the two men meet frequently. David says: “I visit. We go to bars, we drink beer and watch football. We are great friends.” Now retired, David divides his time between the Philippines and the UK, always trying to avoid the “horrible” British winter. But the main reason he spends so much time here is his son. “He is a great man, feet on the ground,” David says. “The best thing I ever did. I am very proud of him. “If it wasn’t for him, I would probably come every couple of years just to see friends for two or three weeks, and that would be it.” What does he have to say to the many British men who abandon their children, or never stop to wonder if they have fathered one? He is slow to judge and suspects many of them have wives and children at home. “The last thing they want is to have to disrupt their family by admitting to this kind of thing,” David says. “It’s fear of the entanglement, fear of the commitment, of the financial consequences, fear of just the responsibility of having a child.” And why do so many British men seek sex with Filipinos? THE LAW By Margaret Simons Supporting your children is not only a moral responsibility, but also a legal one in almost all countries of the world, including the Philippines and the United Kingdom.Coming to a sensible and amicable agreement between mothers and fathers is usually in everyone’s best interests.But as a last resort, we find lawyers to act for the children and their mothers and go to court.The United Kingdom and the Philippines have a reciprocal enforcement maintenance order arrangement. This means the British authorities and courts will enforce alegitimate child support application from a Philippines-based parent.The legal obligation to support your children does not depend on whether the mother and father were married, or had a long-term relationship.If the father is not acknowledged on the birth certificate, then its more complicated and a special application with additional evidence, such as a DNA test, will have to be made.If the father won’t provide DNA evidence, then an application can be made to the courts to make a declaration of parentage on the basis of any other evidence provided, and taking into account the father’s refusal. The courts can also order a father to do a DNA test if they decide it is in the child’s best interests.If the British authorities decide a father is due to pay child support, then they use a formula based on the income of both parents to decide the amount. Failure to pay child support can lead to money being deducted direct from wages or pensions, or bailiffs can be sent to collect on the debt.If a child was born on or after 1 July 2006 to a Filipino mother and a British citizen, then they are automatically British citizens. They can apply to the British Government for a letter to confirm this, and then for a British passport – but would have to provide evidence of parentage. Again, the courts can be asked to order a DNA test. He says: “In the Philippines, it’s very easy to find a girlfriend, to be honest. If you come for a month, it’s easy to find a girlfriend who will stay with you for a month, and then maybe see you when you come again the next year, and that’s the way it works. “Sometimes it’s a permanent relationship. Sometimes, as one of my friends put it in a French phrase, it’s ‘wife du jour’ (meaning, wife of the day).” And what would he say to other British men who father children in the Philippines? “It’s very difficult,” he says. “It depends on your circumstances.” It was easy for David, as a middle-aged man without a wife, to stand by his child. It is harder for others. But, he acknowledges, most British men with children in the Philippines could send even “a little money each month, if they wanted to”. “Too many of them don’t want to, and that is hardly right,” he adds. Put simply, William makes him happy. William is in the process of changing his name from Gutierrez. He may soon apply for British citizenship too. Meanwhile, before he left, Roy agreed that he would help his daughters make an application for British citizenship. Soon, they hope to see him again in Britain and to connect with their half-siblings. And after years of anger, they don’t hesitate when asked if they love their father. Melanie says: “Yes, I love him. I am now complete.” You can find out more about Angeles Relief Inc’s work here.