4 sisters returned to Italian father after their Australian Mum took them to Australia.....dragged kicking and screaming onto the plane.

[AmberLeaf]

Apparently the girls aged between 9-15 are dual citizens.

Link sorry its the DM.

Do they not take the childs view into account in Australia?

A point being lost here is that the motjer's best shot at gaining at least shared custody long term is in Italy. In Australia the courts have already determined the girls are better off in a foster home than being with her, that she was manipulating them in dangerous ways (threats of suicide), and that she was lying about the violence of her ex (under the Hague, the judge would not have ordered the return if her claims were credible).

So the result of the return Italy is not only that the girls are back where they were born and grew up, but that they will have both parents in their lives, and will see more of mum than an Australian court would have allowed.

In the end, better that they will have both parents than no parents.

segue

You can plainly see that she has damaged those children. If you can't, you aren't reading about the same case. Just to see the way they had to be returned,. the way she leaked the address of their father, got the press to follow them, that is damaging.

Where as, the only "evidence" we have that dad is abusive is her say so. There has been no proof of abuse anywhere.

Also, the girls were not deported. Stop using such emotive language. They were returned to their home country in order for the courts there to hear them & to decided what to do. The girl were questioned by trained professionals. They found that the family over here were using highly emotive & manipulative language in front of the girls. That the girl themselves had been lied to (they didn't know that they were permanently relocating). They also found that the girls would happily return to Italy [2011] if mum went to. So I will demonise the mother if it is all the same to you, as it is simple to see that NONE of this would have happened if the mother hadn't abducted the girls. But you go on saying that she hasn't damaged them it is makes you feel better.

What happened in Italy wrt the alleged abuse cannot be tried here. It didn't allegedly happen here, the court here have no back ground on what was happening before/after the marriage etc. The courts here cannot call witnesses from Italy. There are many reason why the hearing couldn't be here.

I don't understand the mothers actions at all. There was no need to remove those girls.

Deportation is the exclusion of a person or group from a country.

They haven't been deported because they are free to return.

I refer to the Hague with 'reverence' as you put it because I have seen the other side of such situations.

Did plenty of time in family law firms and shit like this is why I will never ever go near one again. Parents treating their children like toys to fight over.

Anyone who is interested ... according to the mum's facebook page, the girls have had contact with their mum via Skype.

I bet that still won't be enough for some.

Most reasonable parents want their children to see both parents after divorce and most of us don't take our children against the law to another country. Some do apply to the court and get or don't get permission (and many others reach agreement with the other parent about it). In cases like this it is important the law is followed.

If the mother wants to see the children regularly she could try to move to Italy. Obviously she took a massive risk in taking them away 2 years ago unlawfully so I am not sure what consequences there will be for her in Italy now even though the father says he will take no action.

But it seems whilst the kids were in Australia they were actually in "foster care", are people actually saying this would be better for the kids than living with their father in Italy ?

Yes, they were take away from the mum. but they were removed from foster care when the older girl threatened to commit suicide. At the hearing a couple of weeks ago, the court-appointed psychologist testified that the girl admitted she only said this because her mother told her to. This caused the change in tone of some of the more legit Australian media about mum, especially since it followed the admission by the mother's lawyers that the maternal grandmother had said she would kill her granddaughters before allowing them to be returned to Italy.

If the girls were to remain in Australia there's no way they would be allowed to remain with mum and her family. No court in the world would accept responsibility for what could happen to thm girls in mum's care.

I wonder if the great-aunt is at risk of prosecution for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice for her role in hiding the children?

Redsilk - Thank you.
so based on that startling piece of news which seems to have been ignored by many posters here i'm really struggling to understand how people can still be campaiging for the children to remain in australia with said mother ! If i were their dad i'd be fighting tooth and nail to get them back regardless of how many yrs they've been living there, i'd be more interested in reducing the damage of their being away for 2 yrs and looking forward to creating a better more stable future for them in the years to come. 2 yrs is a very short time when looking at a lifetime.

I think the mother needs some help. Plenty of parents get very very one sided and bound up in their own cause which at times can overtake the issue of what is best for children. Many want the children all the time or not at all and all kinds of silly demands, whereas most good post divorce contact comes from compromise.

I am sure they will settle back in Italy and the teenage girl as those of us who have had some know only too well is not always the most reliable of things.

Why is my assumption less valid than anyone else's here? We're all making assumptions. My assumption is that the father is controlling. My view is "hearsay" whereas your assumption that the mother "damaged" the girls is proof? Where is your proof?
The 'proof' is in all the court documents and press releases. Whereas your assumption that the father is abusive seems to be based upon nothing but the mother's word. Which is understandable.....if she hadn't continually lied & manipulated everyone around her. Given that, I don't give her word much credibility.

I don't know why everyone keeps referring to the Hague convention with such reverence......and I'd be surprised if after all this there won't be some changes.

I bet you nothing will change. The Hague convention has been one of our most important international laws protecting our children. The right decision has been made here and I am glad to see the judge made it rather than kowtow to mum's illegal, irresponsible and manipulative behaviour.

But one parent is Italian, the other Australian - which means one parent is going to suffer horribly if they both stay put. I can understand the mother's actions, particularly if she felt that the marriage failed because of a basic lack of respect. None of the options looked good for her.

She should have stayed in Italy and apply to leave with the girls to court. If she won then fair enough. If she lost then she would have to stay. Bear in mind this is not a woman who just arrived a couple of years ago but has spent half her life in Italy and was fluent in Italian and fully engrained in their society.

What she can't just do is sod off with the girls in tow. And the only reason she could do that is because she lied (a pattern) to the Australian authorities.

Honestly Segue, I cannot understand anything the mum has done correctly. So I fail to understand your sympathy for her.

I think the mother needs some help

I would agree with that Xenia. It beggars belief that she could think this was a good idea and does make me worry about her stability.

I'm also concerned for the girls welfare/mental health on top of everything else. I do hope they have access to counselling/MH professionals, because I can't see that they can bounce back from something like this. They need an output for their anger, grief and confusion.

Poor buggers.

I defend her because the views here are one-sided to the extreme. No, I don't believe she is all bad and he is all good. Sometimes things are that simple, but I don't believe so in this case. I know what she did was illegal, despicable and desperate. I notice that no-one here has actually said what they think about the father, as though that's irrelevant. Could you do something like this to your spouse/partner and put someone through this torment? Sometimes marriages fail because people just grow apart, mature in different ways, lose attraction for one another. But if the basic respect is there, there will be a conscientious effort to get along for the sake of the children. If both parents lived here they could agree to live apart but reasonably close to one another, get a new job if need be, and share custody - so it's not the end of the world for either parent. Unfortunately some marriages are not based around respect and when children are involved the fall out is ugly because then it's all about ownership. I think this may be one of those marriages. Maybe, due to her lack of independent means, she was subservient. The person who wields the purse strings wields the power; sometimes this is done gracefully, sometimes not. But there has to be some serious issues for her to do what she did. What is the basis for that hatred and why is it irrelevant? Don't the full facts matter?

The full facts like she asked him to relocate to Oz at one point? If she wanted him to do that, so they could all be together as a family, can he really be as bad as she makes out?

It is not one sided to take the view that a parent must never be allowed to break the law and take their children abroad to live. It protects our children if we see that law complied with . Well done Australia for this. Yes that might sometimes make hard cases but that does not make the decision wrong.

As for who is the bad person int he marriage we all know that there is often fault on both sides and not to b elieve what each side says. If she was worried about this kind of thing why marry a foreigner in the first place? We all know no matter how strong the lust that the consequence if major difference and the risk of jurisdictional issues over children and divorce. She chose to live in Italy. She chose to bring her children up as Italians until she snatched them away 2 years ago. She formed that status quo of Italian children by marrying and bringing them up there - her risk.

If ther eis al esson and someone abovce is saying the mother did not earn much money the moral of that is make sure those teenage girls go out there and be bankers, actuaries, lawyers and top accountants - don't persuade a girl into al ow paid career and make sure they realise that those issues matter just as much as how you look and whom you might marry. Feminism is the key to most personal happiness.

Why is the court report online? Aren't family matters held in secret in Australia?

And I agree with Xenia. The two countries and the law have come out very well. Something works. The parents have cocked up but the people who adminster the law haven't.

I would favour more openness in UK proceedings too as i think on balance that benefits parents adn children. We have too much secrecy here. I don't know about Australian law and may be the mother put a lot of information in the public domain anyway so the court realised it would be dangerous just to allow one side out. Sometimes the UK does the same in some family cases.

I notice that no-one here has actually said what they think about the father, as though that's irrelevant.

Well from all that's been said/published so far the father seems to have been entirely reasonable under the circumstances. Unlike his ex, he's fought to see his daughters within the law and continued to fight when a lot of men would have given up. His motives seem to have been focused on his daughters rather than revenge which is demonstrated by the fact he's happy to drop charges against his ex.

Now the girls are back in Italy he's allowed them to skype their mum. Demonstrating that unlike his ex he's still interested in the girls maintaining contact with their mum. He's willing still to have joint custody if she returns to Italy.

Aside from the unsubstantiated allegations of abuse made by his proven lying and manipulative ex, what do you think the dad should have done differently?

There you go. That's what I think about the father.

I'll tell you what I think of the father, for what it's worth. I think that if I were in the same position as him, and my ex was behaving as horrendously as his has, I'd quite likely end up following the same course of action as he did.

The father is good and he has shown his reasonableness by allowing the children to skype their mother and I think he offered to pay for mother's visits and I think he also said he would not personally press any charges against her. Most parents on here if their other half took the children in breach of the law abroad would follow the same procedures he did. I mentioned earlier on the thread someone I know whose wife has taken the chidlren back to her home in Australia - they have always lived here. He isn't fighting it and will just see them in holidays; even though the boy just won a place at one of the best private schools in Central London and that was all fixed. It's the father's choice and I think the children being a bit older in their case may well choose the mother so no point in fighting it and I expect they will see him all summer etc but it probably will mean his relationship with them becomes one of not knowing each other and occasional visits.

I get the point about Australia not having jurisdiction to decide the issue of residency/contact etc, but it's ridiculous that the kids had to be sent back to Italy for the case to be heard.

Of course the father is not in the wrong by issuing proceedings, and to be fair to him, he probably has been trying to get the kids back for years, but still think it's unnecessary for them to be in Italy as surely in this day and age, there is technology to figure it out?

ilovemydog, by that logic then in the recent case of the 15yo girl going to France with her teacher, she should have stayed in France with him while the UK courts tried him over a video link for child abduction.

What Snorbs said. The point is not the custody battle itself per se. The point is that mum illegally removed the children in a very manipulative and calculating way. If the kids are not returned then it must in danger every other child being protected by the Hague convention.

It's the same principle as why we should never negotiate with terrorists or pay ransom to kidnappers. Once you start, you open the floodgates.