Gammy, a baby born with Down's Syndrome, is held by his surrogate mother Pattaramon Janbua at a hospital in Chonburi province August 3, 2014. 
 
 SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Australian biological parents of twins caught up in a surrogacy scandal in Thailand wanted both babies but the surrogate mother threatened to involve the police and they feared she would keep both children, they said on Sunday. 
 
 David and Wendy Farnell were speaking publicly for the first time since the story broke more than a week ago of 7-month-old baby Gammy, who has Down's syndrome and is being cared for by his surrogate mother in Thailand. 
 
 The couple told Australian television they felt they had little choice but to leave Thailand with Gammy's healthy sister. 
 
 "We wanted to bring him with us," David Farnell, 56, told the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes program. 
 
 They returned to Australia with Gammy’s sister Pipah as the surrogate mother Pattaramon Janbua had told them “if we try to take our little boy, she’s going to get the police and she’s going to come and take our little girl… and she’s going to keep both of the babies,” he said. 
 
 The couple have been criticized for apparently rejecting the boy, who also has a hole in his heart and is being treated for a lung infection in a Thai hospital. 
 
 60 Minutes said the couple were not paid for the interview. 
 
 Pattaramon said doctors, the surrogate agency and the baby’s parents had known that Gammy was disabled when she was four months pregnant but had not told her until the seventh month. 
 
 She said she had feared she would be asked to abort him but would have refused due to her Buddhist beliefs. 
 
 The Farnells said they were angry that the agency had not told them about the boy's condition until too late in the pregnancy to safely abort. 
 
 They said they want the baby. 
 
 The case has drawn international attention to the lack of regulation of international surrogacy and sparked calls in Australia for an overhaul of laws to cut the number of couples traveling abroad for surrogates. 
 
 Public outrage intensified last week when it became known that David Farnell was jailed in 1997 for sex offences involving three girls aged under 13. 
 
 "I have been convicted of child sex offences and I hang my head in shame for that," he told 60 Minutes, adding that he had reformed and was no longer a risk to children. 
 
 As commercial surrogacy is outlawed in Australia many couples turn to clinics in Thailand and India. 
 
 Thailand has no clear legal framework for surrogacy. Commercial surrogacy is barred by the Medical Council of Thailand but non-profit surrogacy is permitted for blood relatives, and exceptions are permitted on a case-by-case basis. 
 
 A draft law banning commercial surrogacy in Thailand has been submitted to the military government, an official of the Social Development and Human Security Ministry said on Thursday. 
 
 The Australian government has asked the Thai authorities to allow for the completion of any current commercial surrogate arrangements before introducing changes. 
 
 Hands Across the Water, an Australian-run children's charity based in Thailand, will administer the more than A$241,000 ($224,000) raised so far in an online public appeal for Gammy’s medical treatment and care. 
 
 (Reporting by Lincoln Feast in Sydney and Morag McKinnon in Perth; Editing by Lynne O'Donnell) ||||| Surrogate mother says twin boy was abandoned by Australian parents but alleged father says he did not know of boy 
 
 Conflicting reports have emerged over a baby with Down’s syndrome allegedly abandoned by its Australian parents in Thailand after being born to a surrogate mother. 
 
 The boy, named Gammy, is currently in hospital being treated for a life-threatening lung infection and will need operations for a heart condition. His surrogate mother, Pattharamon Chanbua, has told journalists he was abandoned when his Australian parents took his sister home but left him. She said they had asked her to abort him. 
 
 The Australian couple have not been named but have reportedly denied leaving Gammy in Thailand. Channel Nine and ABC both say they have spoken with them. More than $200,000 has been raised for Gammy through a viral online campaign but the people behind it have refused to reveal their identity because of their “position of work”. 
 
 Gammy’s alleged Australian father told the ABC the clinic’s doctor only told them about a girl and he had been told the surrogacy agency no longer existed. The couple told Channel 9 they had a daughter of similar age to Gammy, born through surrogacy, but she did not have a twin. They described their experience with the surrogacy agency as “traumatising”. 
 
 
 
 Chanbua told Fairfax the couple stayed in Thailand for a month when the twins were born, as the girl was in hospital along with Gammy. She said the father would not look at Gammy and did not carry him during the month. 
 
 A GoFundMe page has raised more than $200,000 for Gammy since the story of his alleged abandonment was first reported last week but the administrators of the page do not want to be identified. The fundraisers have asked the charity Hands Across the Water to handle the money and Hands Across the Water founder Peter Baines said it would not be writing a cheque to Gammy’s family. 
 
 “We will meet the immediate needs of his treatment in hospital now and then develop a long-term strategy over the next couple of weeks,” Baines told Guardian Australia. 
 
 Baines will meet Gammy’s family when he travels to Thailand, on a pre-arranged trip, this month and they will discuss Gammy’s future medical and schooling needs. 
 
 He said it was likely a trust account would be set up to fund Gammy’s expenses over the years. 
 
 “Is it appropriate to hand them [the Thai parents] a cheque for $10,000? I suspect not,” Baines said. 
 
 He said he knew who was behind the fundraising page but would not reveal their identity. 
 
 “Because of their position of work they wish to remain anonymous,” he said. “When they started off they raised $6,000 in Thailand and then asked us to take up the project.” 
 
 Baines said the $200,000 was more than was ever expected and the curators of the page posted a message saying they had reached their “goal” with the six-figure amount on Monday. 
 
 “This has been a heartwarming project for our team and we look forward to seeing what the final donations amount to … this is people power at its best!” the message posted on the GoFundMe page said. 
 
 “We do not view this as a short-term project, it is our vision by working together we can work to make Gammy’s life meaningful and his challenges dealt with with respect, love and care.” 
 
 Baines said he was not aware of reports from the Australian couple that they did not know about Gammy. 
 
 “From our perspective it’s almost a side issue. It’s not something we would seek out,” he said. 
 
 Baines said the focus of the charity was on distributing the funds responsibly and appropriately. He said a sub-committee would be established, involving the fundraisers and representatives from Down’s syndrome groups, to advise on how the money should be spent. 
 
 Chanbua said she was going to report the surrogacy agency to police on Monday but had so far not made contact with police, saying she was seeking further legal advice. ||||| Thai surrogate baby Gammy: Australian parents 'wanted him' 
 
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 The Australian couple accused of abandoning a baby born with Down's syndrome to a Thai surrogate mother say they wanted to take him home. 
 
 David and Wendy Farnell, speaking publicly for the first time, insisted the Thai mother would not hand over Gammy, now seven months old. 
 
 The couple, who took Gammy's twin sister, say they want to get him back. 
 
 The surrogate mother originally said the couple deliberately left Gammy behind because of his disabilities. 
 
 But in an interview with the Associated Press on Sunday, Pattharamon Chanbua, 21, appeared to backtrack, saying: "I did not allow Gammy to go back with them - that's the truth. It is because they would have taken Gammy back and put him in an institute." 
 
 In an emotional interview on Australia's Channel Nine on Sunday, David Farnell said: "We did not abandon our son. 
 
 "(Pattharamon) said that if we tried to take our little boy, she's going to get the police and she's going to try and take our little girl and she's going to keep both of the babies." 
 
 He added: "The surrogate mother - it is her choice if she wants to give you the baby or not give you the baby. Although you have a surrogacy agreement, it really doesn't mean anything. It is her decision, and our surrogate mother said that she wanted to keep the baby boy." 
 
 An online campaign has raised tens of thousands of pounds to help Pattharamon Chanbua with Gammy's medical expenses. 
 
 The case took an even darker twist when it emerged that David Farnell had been convicted in the 1990s of multiple sex offences against young girls. 
 
 He insisted on Sunday that his daughter, Pipah, was not at risk of harm from him. 
 
 "I will do everything in the world to protect my little girl," he said. 
 
 "I have no inclination of doing anything like this. I don't have any thoughts about this at all. That is the 100% truth. I cannot do this again." 
 
 Officials say they have contacted the couple, but have no major concerns at present. 
 
 'Anger at agency' 
 
 Pattharamon Chanbua, who has two other children, said the couple had asked her to have an abortion when she was told of the baby boy's condition four months after becoming pregnant. 
 
 She said she refused, as it was against her Buddhist beliefs. Abortion on the grounds of foetal impairment is illegal in Thailand. 
 
 David Farnell denied asking the mother to have an abortion but said they were angry that the surrogacy agency had not conducted tests earlier because by the time they found out about the baby's condition, it was too late in the pregnancy to abort the foetus. 
 
 Had they known earlier, he said, they probably would have terminated the pregnancy. 
 
 "I don't think any parent wants a son with a disability," he said. "Parents want their children to be healthy and happy." 
 
 David Farnell said that was when Pattharamon Chanbua offered to keep Gammy. 
 
 "We were thinking, oh, maybe this might be OK," he said. 
 
 But when the babies were born, he added, he and his wife realised they wanted to keep both. 
 
 He said the surrogate mother then insisted she be allowed to keep Gammy, and threatened to keep Pipah as well. 
 
 Besides Down's syndrome, Gammy has a congenital heart condition and a lung infection.
– Since the story of baby Gammy went viral several days ago, the Australian government has announced that it is looking into whether it can intervene in a case described by the Australian immigration minister as "very, very murky," particularly because it took place in another country, reports the Telegraph. The baby, now 7 months old, was allegedly abandoned by his Australian parents, who paid a 21-year-old Thai woman to be a surrogate mother following an IVF procedure that ultimately resulted in twins. But the Australian couple says they were never told about the second baby, though surrogate Pattaramon Chanbua, a street vendor with two young children of her own, thinks they're lying about that. She says she was asked to abort Gammy but refused due to religious beliefs, and she's now raising him—and she wants to raise his twin sister as well after new allegations arose against the couple who took her and left Gammy behind. Sources tell Australia's 9 News that the father is a pedophile who was jailed in the 1990s on child sex convictions; his wife says she's aware of those convictions but that her husband is a changed man. The AP also spoke to a police officer who says the man is a convicted sex offender. Child protective services is reportedly looking into the father's suitability now, and Chanbua says she'd take the baby girl she carried back. As for whether she'd turn Gammy over to the couple at this point, she says, "Never. Not in any way." He's currently in the hospital with a serious lung infection and will need surgery for a heart problem, reports the Guardian. A GoFundMe campaign started by a charity has raised more than $230,000 for Gammy's care, and some have argued that Gammy should be able to access Australia's health care. Click for more on the baby's story.