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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think this 'child abductor' does NOT deserve prison?

74 replies

WomanInChains · 10/09/2018 22:14

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/uk-mother-indea-ford-guilty-abduction-charges-alaska-extradition-a8531361.html

and a slightly different spin..........

www.kcaw.org/2018/03/08/expat-mom-raising-healthy-girls-means-going-prison/

The law is in fact an ass!

OP posts:
TheWinterofOurDiscountTentsMk2 · 11/09/2018 01:34

I found the other link which includes the comments from other family members. Quite telling I thought

Her exs family are hardly going to take her side, are they? No surprise his mother and sisters are going to back him.

DiegoMad0nna · 11/09/2018 01:34

It's kind of pointless to speculate, isn't it? Given that the two possible scenarios prompt such vastly opposing reactions, and none of us have any idea which is true.

a ) either he's abusive and the courts failed her, he threatened to kill her and so she fled

b) he's not abusive and she just said that as an excuse for abducting her kids and moving halfway around the world and not letting him see them for 3 years

OkPedro · 11/09/2018 01:52

Her own mother left comments under that article..

Hertha · 11/09/2018 02:11

I’m confused as to what this has to do with Canada? And what’s this about a Canadian report with extra info?

TheWinterofOurDiscountTentsMk2 · 11/09/2018 02:15

I think some people think Alaska is in Canada?

DiegoMad0nna · 11/09/2018 02:16

I’m confused as to what this has to do with Canada? And what’s this about a Canadian report with extra info?

Grin

I think the link to Canada is that some people seem to think Alaska is in Canada!!

Spartasprout · 11/09/2018 02:24

The comments in the Alaskan report are from his mother AND hers.

Hertha · 11/09/2018 02:27

I think the link to Canada is that some people seem to think Alaska is in Canada!!
Even if someone thought that beforehand, I don’t know how you read any of those articles, which each repeatedly refer to the US, and think ‘ah, this must be about Canada’.

The poor father and kids though. Is it just her new husband that lives in Alaska with them? One of the comments made me wonder if their grandfather was there too?

zippey · 11/09/2018 07:12

Its easy to cry abuse these days, as Roxanne Pallet did. Except no cameras this time to prove the father was or wasn’t abusive.

It also seems like an easy get out of jail card. If someone is abusive you deal with it NOT by getting married and living thousands of miles away. It just sounds like she and her ex didn’t get along, she fell in love and wanted to start a new life in the US.

As the children only know life in Alaska it does seem a bit cruel to bring them back to the UK now.

BoneyBackJefferson · 11/09/2018 07:15

Stripyhoglets1

It's very telling that that step father has custody - not the bio father

It really isn't. America is notoriously difficult to get children back from once they are there.

Stripyhoglets1 · 11/09/2018 09:09

I meant the Alaskan news reports not Canadian. I still believe her.

zippey · 11/09/2018 13:31

How can you believe someone you have never met?

TheWinterofOurDiscountTentsMk2 · 11/09/2018 13:32

How can you disbelieve someone you have never met?

50Running50 · 11/09/2018 14:36

Why are you wheeling out the 'we believe her' claptrap??

TheWinterofOurDiscountTentsMk2 · 11/09/2018 14:38

Why are you wheeling out the 'we believe her' claptrap??

Because its not claptrap Hmm MN did a whole campaign. Its not a "We believe her unless the Mirror wrote an unflattering article"
Hmm

50Running50 · 11/09/2018 14:42

Lol

A 'campaign' you say!? Oh well then Hmm

Well, I don't automatically believe her just because she's female. My sons have had some nasty piece of work girlfriends. Believe her? Nah. Experience tells me otherwise.

TheWinterofOurDiscountTentsMk2 · 11/09/2018 14:58

Lol? You're Lol'ling at domestic violence? Because your sons have had bad girlfriends?
Maybe its the way you raised them Hmm

SpringSnow · 11/09/2018 15:00

Let me guess? Because she's a women you think she deserves special treatment and the law shouldn't apply?

TheWinterofOurDiscountTentsMk2 · 11/09/2018 15:08

Bad guess. Want to try again?

squeekyhead · 11/09/2018 15:14

In cases like this I always transpose the word "father" for "mother" and from my experience from mn. Had it been the father that acted in this way he'd get zero sympathy on here. Same applies. She broke the law. Yes her children will stay in USA but, if one day they want a relationship with their father he will be able to prove he was not the one to take them away and make contact difficult/impossible.

HeadsDownThumbsUpEveryone · 11/09/2018 15:22

I agree with everything Squeekyhead said

If this was a man he would be slated on here for denying them a relationship with their mother, for breaking the law and for moving them in with a partner they had never met in a country they didn't know.

It would be so easy, given their ages, for this women to tell those 2 children a pack of lies about how their dad did not care about them and how he didn't want to be part of their lives. Now they will be able to see clearly that this was never the case, I feel terrible for him not being able to get them back from America. Sad

Hereward1332 · 11/09/2018 15:54

What happened to "we believe her"?

She was shown in court to have lied at least once. Tends to affect credibility.

MrsJonSno · 11/09/2018 15:56

Regardless of the history and why she left and the rights and wrongs of either of the’ the fact is that when she did leave she provided the Father with her address, he was free to apply to Court to have the children returned. He did the intial application but failed to follow this up. He was required to serve the Court Order he obtained Ex Parte but it turns out he served his by email rather than to the address they lived at which he had been informed of. He then didn’t continue proceedings over the next two years to have the children returned. He stopped. Now the children have lived there for 3 years, have settled in school there and it’s their home with their brother. If Dad has served the papers on her and followed it up he’d likely have had the kids back years ago.

SpringSnow · 11/09/2018 16:06

@MrsJonSno Regardless of the history and why she left and the rights and wrongs of either of the’ the fact is that when she did leave she provided the Father with her address, he was free to apply to Court to have the children returned. He did the intial application but failed to follow this up. He was required to serve the Court Order he obtained Ex Parte but it turns out he served his by email rather than to the address they lived at which he had been informed of. He then didn’t continue proceedings over the next two years to have the children returned. He stopped. Now the children have lived there for 3 years, have settled in school there and it’s their home with their brother. If Dad has served the papers on her and followed it up he’d likely have had the kids back years ago.

If the sexes were reversed that comment would provoke lots of howling about "victim blaming" and extrapolation about her being too scared to take legal Action. MN double standards at their finest.

WellThisIsShit · 11/09/2018 16:09

It all seems such a mess, with so many people shouting accusations and hating each other.

One thing is clear. There isn’t a clear ‘true’ narrative through this mess.

Is the woman a victim/hero failed by a system saving her children? Well, maybe the father was a pretty awful parent. That Instagram caption is foul, if from him.

But if he is the evil villain of the piece, why is the older son left behind? However I notice no one is being clear where the older son is living, so I suspect he’s not living with the father of the two girls?

This poor child left behind is the main circumstance that makes the mother seem less than motivated by pure motherly instincts.

But then again it’s all speculation but what I’ve seen on here are families who don’t behave in functional ways. Families who side with abusers, or who chose to turn on scapegoats in extraordinary ways. So, I’d not be too surprised to find out that’s what was happening here with all that dirty laundry washed in public below the Alaskan article. OR can one person create such chaos by being mercilessly manipulative moving through life motivated only by their own desires and using people along the way. Yup, seem that here too!

Basically... it’s a total mess and I hope a judge will try and find their way through the whole thing. I hope they won’t just take a snapshot and leave so many people confused and without a sense of conclusion. Those children need someone to record a way through all this that might help them as they grow and come looking for answers.

Ultimately, it’s all these children that are left without a parent and without a sense of why.