A couple who fled Scotland three months ago after admitting to a sheriff court that they had committed incest, have appeard on US television to defend their relationship.

Danielle Heaney and Nick Cameron, who are half-sister and brother, appeared on the TV show Good Morning America, in order to tell their story to millions of viewers.

The couple face the possibility of being prosecuted in the US if they are found to have been having sexual relations, but yesterday they made no attempt to disguise the nature of their relationship.

They announced that they planned to move to France, where they can legally live as a couple, and they insist that they will continue their love affair despite the outcry.

“I think it would be lovely to grow old together,” Cameron, 28, told US viewers. “There is a consistent and necessary need to be close to each other physically,” he said.

The siblings were separated when they were infants. Cameron was put into foster care, and Heaney was raised by their birth mother.

Two years ago they were reunited at a family gathering and later the relationship began.

In January they appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court and were placed on probation after they admitted committing incest at Danielle's house in Glenrothes, Fife.

Sheriff William Holligan gave warning to the pair that if they committed incest again they would be dealt with more severely.

Following their conviction Cameron and Heaney called for a change in the law to allow couples in their situation to marry.

The siblings have said that they believe they were attracted to each other because they were separated as children.

“I think the first time I saw Danielle I found her very attractive,” Cameron said. “But I also thought, ‘Hang on a second, this is your sister you're talking about'.”

Heaney was already married when she met her half-brother. She said that she had broached the subject of her developing feelings with her husband, with whom she has a daughter.

“I said I could grow to love Nick very easily,” she told the interviewer.

“And funnily enough he said, ‘Hopefully, just as a brother?' And I said, ‘Of course'.”

Heaney has since spilt with her husband, with whom their daughter now lives.

Cameron and Heaney told US viewers that they had swiftly grown close.

“There were quite a lot of times we would just sort of stop and look into each other's eyes and I think both of us wanted to kiss each other at that point,” Cameron said.

“But of course we decided against that. And then one day I just decided to heck with it and I just kissed her.”

Heaney, 22, is unable to have more children. She was sterilised after suffering severe postnatal depression following the birth of her daughter.

She said that their emotional relationship developed more fully after their liaison became sexual.

She said: “I only realised I was falling in love with Nick after I kissed him. Look at him, he's gorgeous.”

Cameron said that he believes that their mother will disown them for the remainder of their lives. He continued: “Our mother actually walked in on us. And of course [she] wasn't too happy. I mean, I can understand her reaction.”

It was the pair's mother, Susan Cameron, who called in police after she had discovered them naked.

The pair have claimed that they are suffering from a condition called genetic sexual attraction, where separation during infancy and childhood results in a failure to form normal sexual taboos.

“At the time, when all this was going on, I was just thinking well, we're just reliving a childhood that we never actually had together,” Cameron said.

“Any sort of sexual thing is a natural bonding process. This need to be together could actually be a fear of being apart again because you haven't grown up together.”

Despite the threat of a further prosecution in Scotland, Cameron and Heaney say that they are determined to stay together.