RAYMOND HULL says he "just loves kids". Which is just as well, considering the unemployed 58-year-old has fathered 22 children by 11 different women.
Hull admits he is only in contact with 14 of his offspring, but is devoted to the latest arrival, seven-month-old Barry. So devoted, in fact, a judge has suspended an 18-month jail term for dealing drugs so Hull can take care of the infant.
Hull, from Springkell, Cumbria, was convicted after police found a "stash of cannabis and text messages from customers", in his possession, the Daily Mail reports. But a judge suspended the sentence – albeit with "considerable hesitation" - after learning that Hull would be looking after Barry when the child's 26-year-old mother, Emma McNeil, went back to her job at a bakery.
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One of the text messages on Hull's phone informed a customer that there would be a delay in supplying drugs due to Barry's impending birth.
Hull has not worked for a decade due to back injuries he says he sustained running after his brood. He defended what the Mail calls his "unconventional lifestyle" by pointing out that he "has never been short of offers" from women.
"I just love kids," he told the paper. "I don't regret anything, even though I don't speak to them all. Some of them don't even know I'm their dad."
Hull added: "I don't know what it is about me, but I'm never short of offers."
Birth records show that the 58-year-old's extraordinary parenting history began in 1975 when he was 19, says the Mail. He had five children with his first wife, Patricia. After they split up, he fathered another three kids with his next partner.
Two years ago he set up home in the Cumbrian village of Aspatria with McNeil and she gave birth to Barry last year.
But Hull's real parenting tally is much higher, he explained, due to a series of short liasons. "The others [children] were just one each with different women," he told the Mail.
