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. Continue reading the main story Related Stories 
 
 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 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. The girl, Pipah, was healthy and came back to Western Australia with the couple but the boy, named Gammy, was born with the disability and remains in the surrogate's care. 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. Pattaramon Chanbua, baby Gammy's Thai surrogate mother 
 
 He denies asking the surrogate mother at any time to have an abortion. Worldwide attention generated by the story has led to almost £150,000 being raised to help pay for Gammy's medical costs. 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. '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 had feared she would be asked to abort him but would have refused due to her Buddhist beliefs. 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.  The biological father accused of abandoning a baby because he was born with Down's syndrome has said he would have terminated the surrogate pregnancy had he known sooner about the boy's condition. Speaking on Channel 9's 60 Minutes programme, Mr Farnell said: "No parent wants a son with a disability. But when the babies were born, he added, he and his wife realised they wanted to keep both. 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.
– With their case making international headlines, the Australian parents of baby Gammy are telling their story. Speaking to Australia's 9News, David Farnell said he and his wife, Wendy, "wanted" to take Gammy home with them, Reuters reports—but his surrogate mother wouldn't let them. Surrogate Pattaramon Chanbua "said if we tried to take our little boy, she's going to get the police and she's going to come and take our little girl," Farnell said, via Sky News, referring to Gammy's twin sister. Earlier, the BBC notes, the Farnells told reporters they hadn't known about Gammy at all. In other moments from the interview: David Farnell also says the couple would likely have sought to terminate the pregnancy if they'd known earlier that Gammy had Down Syndrome, Sky News reports. "It was late into the pregnancy that we learned the boy had Down's," Farnell says, noting that "no parent wants a son with a disability." Farnell acknowledged his convictions for child sex abuse; 9News notes that he was convicted of abusing four girls, ages five to 10, over a decade. He spent three years in jail. "I’ve been convicted of child sex offenses and I hang my head in shame," he said. "Everybody hates sex offenders," he noted, per Sky. "That's why I've tried so hard and want to be a good father to my children, so people can see that I'm a good person now because I did this bad thing a long time ago."