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?

I somehow feel that if the shoe had been on the opposite foot in this case, with the father abducting the children, most of the responses here would be different.

She broke the law and knew it.

He lodged complaint asap.

She hung onto the kids instead of coming to an agreement with him.

sorry should be clearer- child welfare SHOULD be a matter for international law but it is significantly neglected. National jurisdictions take far more account of it.

No, expat, I would feel the same. If the children were being dragged away screaming from a father, I would still say that the mother should not bring the case and should allow them to stay where they are, and change HER OWN life if necessary- anything rather than subject them to this violence.

Because very few fathers are primary carers, there are actually far fewer cases of paternal abduction.

Funnily enough, she has never shown the slightest distress at her children being cared for by me - I would say that she always enthusiastically embraced the idea of yet another adult on tap to whom childcare could be outsourced!

Placing law, any law, above the welfare of children is just wrong and never, ever turns out well. Have a look at the British case of TE v SH where a 12 year old boy was forcibly handed over to a father he had never lived with in his life because the judge ruled that his mother had 'alienated' him.

That may have been the case, although it was far from clear from the judgement. Even if it were the case, inflicting psychological and physical violence on a child and ripping him away from his established life was truly the worst possible outcome. Even enforced contact would have been better than that.

As it is they're likely to end up being cared for by a grandmother or aunts who loathe their mother, they will not fit in, they will miss their primary carer horribly. Why on earth would a truly loving parent want to do that to them? I think that he is treating them as possessions, tbh.

that has really upset me watching this, but I cant help but think the mother has created this situation and has been very selfish for allowing this to occur.

it obviously did not need to get to that point had she returned in the first place.

The law is the law and must be enforced, sadly for the little girls in the middle of all this.

But I just cant help it in thinking she has deliberatly exposed he children to this. Does the mother have duel nationality? I didnt grasp that part, is she permitted to live in the fathers country with her children? or would it be a case that she isnt granted permission to live in the same country as the girls, as that could be the only explination I cvould come up for this to occure. I couldnt read the links.

I find it suspicious that it was all done so publicly. If I'd been selfish enough to let my children be treated like that the last thing I'd want is for it to be filmed and distributed. There would have been many ways they could have been extradited privately. This whole thing has been an exercise in using children as pawns. Shocking!

hmm Bonsoir she sounds a right case!!! At least my ex for sure is not motivated by money as since he effed up by effectively forcing me to leave my original job- after agreeing initially that I would move out of London with the boys, then saying this was no longer possible as 'unfair', he ended up agreeing out of court to compensate me for the massive extra rental costs etc. which I now incur. Otherwise he knew I could not afford to live in London in a place big enough to accommodate the boys. And he knew that if I had to leave, I would apply to court to take the boys with me and he did not want to risk that.

And, he knew he couldn't handle being the primary carer either (he wants his time off for going out to pubs etc :)) So he ended up a bit stitched up, he moans all the time about 'how much I cost him' but won't consider a more affordable solution such as moving to a cheaper area where we could both afford to buy a house. (I have no chance of buying on my salary, and after 4 years I still do not have my share of the relatively low equity in the family home, so have a quite massive rent bill plus have to stay in b and bs when have early start at work). It's a silly situation all round, tbh.

The law in this case has flexibility, Enthusiastic. It did not need to be exercised so brutally.

It sounds awful and such a waste of money.

Our situation was much more straightforward - exW wanted minimum childcare and maximum cash while still being able to garner sympathy from her entourage for being a single working mother of two DCs. It didn't quite work out that way!

Yes bonsoir, it's more a waste of HIS money than anything else. His behaviour has been really bizarre in a lot of ways. I think tbh the divorce sent him a bit crazy, I don't blame him for that as it did same to me :)

He will not sign divorce papers. Will not settle financially so I could try to sort myself out with a house. I think this is because he KNOWS there is not enough equity for me to buy a house in London, he knows that it is not viable to keep me in rented accommodation which costs 3/4 of my salary, and he is simply terrified of having to change anything in his life.

I will get more equity in the end I guess as he is paying the mortgage, plus he is paying more per month now than he would have to in that case.... just so he can stick his head in the sand.

he is in total denial... I just sent yet another round of solicitor's letters asking for new financial information as a year has lapsed since I got the last lot. I get emails and calls every day burbling on about some aspect of the boys life eg property, uniform, etc. The big questions remain totally unanswered and I have resigned myself to a future of incredibly expensive court battles. Luckily I have a solicitor who is prepared to wait for her fees until we settle.

as i said I have not read all the articles its to upsetting. But what if they had exhausted all flexability? From the footage it looks like the mum could have maintained a calmer situation had she been complient through out the whole 2 years. It is brutal no question about that, but I think ultimatly if mum has been noncomplient then a decission would have had to be made to enforse the law.

Does your dp now have 50/50, bonsoir?

I really do wish my ex would get a nice partner. He was once a good bloke before the divorce but there has been no whisper of a date ever since. I would love to feel that the boys were being cared for by someone nice.

DP has in fact always had 50:50. ExW tried to dress it up as permanent residence at her home with visitation to DP, but when it came to negotiating the divorce settlement and the children's residence, the window dressing quickly fell apart and neither DP's nor exW's lawyers said that a judge would think that there was anything but a de facto 50:50.

"The four girls aged 9 and 15". Do they mean aged between 9 and 15? FFS, just ask them where THEY want to live, end of.

Disgusting, criminal, manipulative behaviour by the mother.

Here is some case law from the UK.

"R. v Brennan [2007] 2 Cr.App.R.(S.) 50
Appellant convicted of abducting a son. He took steps to prevent contact between the child and his mother and eventually took the child to Canada. The judge described the appellant's behaviour as involving considerable dishonesty, planning and manipulations of the Canadian authorities and his new family in Canada. Eventually, the son was returned to this country. The appellant was deported from Canada and arrested on his return to the United Kingdom. Sentence of four years imprisonment."

Or R. v Kayani

Kayani took his children from the UK to Pakistan, after his marriage to a British woman broke down. The were removed in 2000 aged 5 and 4. They returned to the UK aged 17 and 16, refusing to meet their mother. He was sentenced to five years, the Court of Appeal saying

"The abduction of children from a loving parent is an offence of unspeakable cruelty to the loving parent and to the child or children, whatever they may later think of the parent from whom they have been estranged as a result of the abduction. It is a cruel offence even if the criminal responsible for it is the other parent.

These offences wholly achieved their intended purpose. The mothers have suffered extreme emotional hardship, and although the children themselves are unaware of it, they have been deprived of one of the foundations for a fulfilling life. The periods of abduction were prolonged, many years in duration, and the relationship with the mothers was irremediably damaged. In the case of the mothers, the hardship will be life long."

The mother here is a manipulative child abducter and should be facing a prison sentence.

Screaming and sobbing then collapsing in the street is not helping those children.

I'd join her in screaming, sobbing and collapsing in the street I think.

You are right, too, about hoping your exH finds someone nice to be a good stepmother to your DCs - it would make all your lives much easier and probably make your exH much more amenable to a reasonable settlement for you all!

"I'd join her in screaming, sobbing and collapsing in the street I think."

Perhaps she should have though of that before abducting her children.

Lots of people sob and scream. They are not sad for what they have done, they are sad for being caught.

skippy have you read much about the case? When she removed the kids from Italy she did so with the Austrilaian embassy's help, the embassy even moved their flight to the day before because they were worried the father might turn up.
I read another artical the the decision was partly based on both parents being suicidal ( plus the father being accused of being abusive) surrounding the death of their child said to be their third oldest. The implication being it was best for the mother to be home in Austrailia with her family and that the children should be with her.
While the father may have believed they were going on Holiday, the Austrilian embassy and family knew it was permant.

Only a few days before one of the older girls tried to escape from where they were being held. When they had been previously taking into Care ( worried they would go on the run again) the authorities were so worried about the children's mental health they allowed their mother to have contact and family members live with them.

Forcing the children to return to Italy may be in the fathers best interest but it sure doesn't look like it is the children's best interest, their rights should be heard first before their parents.
The children want to be with their mother.
I'm sure the older girls being aged 13 and 12 will have very clear memories of living with their father yet they were so hysterical they had to be removed from the flight and fly the next day.

Should have been clearer the older girls were 13 and 12 when they last saw their father they are now 15 and 14 years old.

I haven't read much about it LittleBairn.

While I could understand children being helped to leave, say Pakistan, it doesn't appear on the face of it appropriate for an embassy to aid child abduction from a country such as Italy.

It doesn't follow from their actions that it was right to do this, the embassy is not a court.

It says:

"The court ruled on Wednesday that the children had to be returned under The Hague Convention and that they loved their father and that there was no evidence he had been abusive.

The girls will not have to live with their father but will need to be in Italy where the custody battle will now be heard."

That seems reasonable to me.

Unless someone has evidence that Italy is akin to Pakistan in terms of its treatment of this situations, this is correct, and the mother should count herself very lucky that she isn't facing prison time.

yes absolutely LIttle. No one seems to have picked up enough on the age of the older kids. They know him; they were with him a couple of years ago; so WHY exactly are they screaming at the thought of being 'reunited' with him?

Some people on here will shout 'parental alienation' but that is not likely given their ages. Possibly they've witnessed and perhaps received abuse from him.

And if he is such a wonderful caring father why on earth did the Aus embassy assist the mother in her concealed flight out of the country in the first place???

skippy In most cases I'm glad of the Hauge convention but I can see how the mother may have been under the impression that she wasn't in a parental abduction situation.

Lack of evidence doesn't disprove abuse just that their wasn't any proof.

The main culprits for this situation IMO is the embassy it should never have helped remove the children in the first place.
Whilst Italy isn't Pakistan I do believe Italian society on the whole is very patriarchal.

The mother was incredibly selfish. I can see it must be really hard to stay in a foreign country when the relationship breaks down but if you choose to have children in a different country that's just how it works.

Funny how no one has mentioned how the children were taken away from everything they know, their friends and their school when the mother originally took then [hmmm]

Those poor children :-(