AN Australian paedophile on the run from police made a new life in Brazil, fathering three foster children until his fake identity unravelled after a serious car crash.

As Christopher John Gott, 63, lies in a coma in a Rio hospital with severe head injuries, his foster children are dealing with shock at learning his secret past.

“Who’s not upset about this kind of accusation?” his foster son, Daniel, told Brazil’s Rede Globo TV program, Fantastico this week.

“That’s why it’s a very difficult thing for us — it’s complicated.” Gott, a former schoolteacher, left the Northern Territory in 1996 after being convicted of child sex crimes in Darwin.

After being released from jail he left the NT as part of his parole conditions and was due to arrive in Victoria by bus, but fled during a stop in Adelaide. He is also sought for questioning by Victoria Police over an indecent assault at a Fitzroy Primary school in Melbourne in 1983.

While his passport named him Daniel Marcos Philips, from Melbourne, Gott’s true identity became known in January when he was seriously injured in the Rio crash, police officer Claudio Otero Ascoli told Fantastico.

Gott was one of 18 people hit by a car on the Copacabana sidewalk, in a crash that killed an eight-month-baby. Fingerprints led Australian authorities to properly identify him.

Foster son Daniel told the program he lived with Gott for six years and considered him a father who helped raise him and two other young men and paid for his education. None were formally adopted.

“He was a fundamental person in my development, he helped me a lot, until I turned 21. I learned perfect English with him, Daniel (Gott), who was always a nice person,” he said.

Gott served two years in jail after pleading guilty in Darwin to 17 abuse charges involving five boys. He was described by the sentencing judge as a “mature, well educated man ... in a fantasy world and in love with a 14-year-old”. He was released on parole conditions banning him having unsupervised contact with boys under 16.

Daniel reported he did not know when or how his ‘father’ entered Brazil and revealed he asked him to put some accounts in his name.

While the three foster children were never abused by him, Daniel told the program he is determined to find out if Gott committed abuse in Brazil. Authorities are also still trying to work out what happened to a woman who was reportedly with Gott and claimed to be his wife when he arrived in Brazil, according to Fantastico.

The program, produced in conjunction with Sydney journalist Andre Rosa, reported the fugitive did not lay low in his adopted city and was considered a friendly guy who taught English on the Copacabana sidewalk and went to the beach and drank caipirinhas daily.

NT Police, already investigating Gott for breaching parole, are exploring the possibility of an extradition if his condition improves.