Parents admit prostituting daughter

SOUTHPORT , Australia, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- An Australian couple has admitted prostituting their daughter, forcing her to service clients starting at age 12.

The mother and father pleaded guilty Friday in Southport District Court, The Brisbane Courier Mail reported. The mother was sentenced to 13 years in prison and the father to 10.

"This was really the most obscene breach of a parental bond that you'll ever come across," said Sgt. Peter Roddick, a detective with the sexual assault unit of the State Crime Operations Command.

In 2004, police received a tip about a Web site that advertised the girl's services. Police interviewed her at her school, and detectives posing as customers were referred to an illegal brothel.

Only one client was charged with having sex with the girl, because others did not know, or did not admit to knowing, that she was underage. That man, an elementary school teacher in Brisbane, took his own life after he was charged.

The girl and her brother are living with relatives in another part of Australia.

"If you passed this family on the street, they'd look like your average middle-class Australian family, they lived an outwardly respectable lifestyle," Roddick said.