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?

Our police are routinely armed (we take the view that not only the bad guys should have guns).

I don't know whether the the AFP can choose not to be in special circumstances, you would need to check with them.

I have never seen an unarmed police officer in Australia even when I have been in stations for administration purposes.

Personally, I prefer the police armed but that is another thread.

It's fairly unusual for police to be unarmed, isn't it? I would say that Britain is the anomaly, not Australia.

Had the mother been more reasonable, prepared them better, or even sorted out travelling with them, the police wouldn't have had to be involved at all.

She was banking on being able to have it stopped, by them getting really upset. Which is just dreadful.

AND HERE'S THE LATEST...
video.au.msn.com/watch/video/deported-girls-mother-considering-legal-rights/xm32urg?cpkey=ce5b4382-d9ed-47d0-acf0-770484072ea7%7C%7C%7C%7C
Girls were picked up and taken home by dad. (not placed with authorities)
And mum is "now" considering a return to Italy to pursue legal options there.

Excuse me while I go kill myself...

Well, I've asked loads of times, what happen when Australian police officers have to deal with vulnerable children? Do they have to carry guns in a visible way?

They don't have to, do they.

This particular operation was what's known as a cock up.

I was wrong about one thing: I said it would take a week or two before she would show us that her "refusal" to go back to Italy was a huge lie. But by the time the girls had landed in Rome she was practically booking tickets.

She's a lying witch who treats her children as tools. I sincerely doubt she'll be jailed in Italy. Pity.

Well anyway, about the girls, I still think the the force used on them was disproportionate.

I feel for this woman and it is a fact that Italians have a rule for them and a rule for their partner
First the father of the girls was in his twenties when he got this former wife pregnant at the age of 16 and married her when she was 17 to make it worst she was on a study tour and was put in his families care for the year she was to stay in Italy at his parents villa, one wonders how he and his family would feel if his now 16 year old daughter (she turned 16 this month) got pregnant to a Australian mane who was in his twenties? His former wife went on to have five daughters the middle on died after being born with problems and lived for a number of years in which she nursed and took care of her, all this time she lived with his parents and know how that would have been like, any won der why the girls do not want to return with the old Nona and papa ruling their lives pity they did not do the same in regard to their son with there mother. The girl?s father was abusive but that is accepted in Italy as normal, he signed the papers to let the girls return to Australia with their mother but changed his mind after they left, so look at the full picture of all this and the mother is only in her early thirties now, I can understand how the mothers parents feel that their granddaughters with suffer the same as their daughter.
The Australian family court has a lot to answer for in regard to this family.

adogforever, why does everyone fall for this tripe now that the lies of the mother and her family have been exposed?
According to the Italian press, the father is 35.
www.gonews.it/articolo_155925_Il-padre-attende-in-aeroporto-le-figlie-dallAustralia.html
They were BOTH kids when they got together.
What was mum doing in Italy, living there at 16, getting pregnant, and not returning? Probably she was sent off on account of sordid family scandal, an inference from her and the family's behaviour, and the fact that the family were happy to let her stay in Italy instead of bringing her home immediately when she got pregnant.

She's 32 and he's 35, and here's a pic of dad in the Italian press.
corrierefiorentino.corriere.it/firenze/notizie/cronaca/2012/5-ottobre-2012/sorelline-contese-tutte-quattro-italia-2112128803540.shtml

One more
www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/im-willing-to-share-custody-in-italy-father/story-e6frg6nf-1226489476239

THE Italian father reunited with his four daughters after they were kept in Australia for two years by their mother will agree to shared custody if his ex-wife joins them, his lawyer says.

Wollongong solicitor Paul Donnelly said his client was happy and relieved his daughters were back in their family home in the Tuscan countryside, ending a bitter international custody battle.

Mr Donnelly said the man did not mind if the mother returned to Italy, where they shared custody of the girls before she brought them to Australia in 2010.

"I think he wanted what was best for his children," he said.

"She will resume her parenting rights just as before. He just wanted them back home."

It's worth considering the timings here:

June 2010 - girls go to Australia on 'holiday' for 4 weeks
July 2010 - mother informs father that they will not return
February 2011 - Queensland Department of Child Safety files for return of children to Italy
June 2011 - decision given by the courts that the children should return within one month
July 2011 - mother ignores court order
August 2011 - appeal filed by mother against court order
March 2012 - appeal rejected
April 2012 - court orders children to go to Italy, either with their mother, or with their father
9 May 2012 - father arrives to bring children to Italy, pending meeting on 14 May 2012
13 May 2012 - Australian grandmother tells the mother's lawyer if the meeting on 14th May not successful, she would kill the 4 girls, and that the mother should kill herself also.
14 May 2012 - the murderous grandmother takes the children into hiding in order to prevent them leaving for Italy
21 May 2012 - "the children were recovered by the Queensland Police." "The transcript of the taped interview of that recovery by the police is in evidence before me. It is a troubling document, particularly given what was said by the great-grandmother to the police in front of the children, and later by the great-grandmother in direct response to questions by one of the children."

Subsequent to this is more legal wrangling, and finally the children have gone home (where home is clearly Italy, since the mother herself stated www.thefamilylawdirectory.com.au/article/family-flees-to-safety-of-coast.html

?I moved to Italy when I was 15 to study Italian for a year and ended up staying 15,?

and "She said it would take a long time for her girls, who are aged seven to 13 and speak no English, to adapt to the Australian way of life.")

So the children were abducted in July 2010, the order was given in June 2011 that they should return, and since then the mother and her evidently toxic family repeatedly ignored the rulings of the court (grounds in itself for imprisonment I would say).

Given the threats to kill the children made by their own grandmother who was supposed to be caring for them, the actions of the police do not seem in the least bit disproportionate.

The mother obviously loved Italy having spent half her life there, and far from her being some sort of helpless Australian flower trapped in a sinister Summerisle-type village surrounded by shrieking Catholicscultists, she evidently had the language ability and experience of life to have moved anywhere in Italy and set up a new life.

I think the police were terribly heavyhanded and added to the girls' trauma. But I think the mother has turned the whole thing into a huge drama unnecessarily. For some time the girls were on the run in Australia and hiding from the authorities. Can you imagine what that was like for them and what they were being told?
She should get on the next plane to Italy, live near the girls and focus on helping them get on with their lives with less drama.
The father has been in and out of Australia for the last two years.

So why did the Australian police behave like this?

I just don't know Linerunner, i have been fortunate enough to never find out.

When police visit schools here they still have their gunbelts on. Whether they are there for 'business' or for talking to the kids etc.

Because they were told to.

Officers were clearly told to put those children on a plane.

Ok, so the armed police were to police the mother's compliance, not the girls'.

Possibly, who knows. I can't imagine there was ever any intention to shoot anyone - this is Brisbane not Beirut.

If the mother thinks the police acted inappropriately then she should make official complaints.

The whole thing could have been avoided by both parents acting like parents. The law is a blunt tool, there should never have been a need to remove the children in those circumstances.

LineRunner, the family had hidden the girls before and threatened to harm them (as has been pointed out) if taken away. No one likes what they saw. But what was the alternative.

Meantime, more sleuthing.... I had imagined the "village" that the girls grandmum said was "all against" theirmum, Pontassieve, was some isolated mountain location. But look on Google maps - it's a friggen suburb of Florence! 15 min by train or 30 by car or city bus.

It's hysterical. Literally EVERYTHING the mum's family says is a lie in some way.

Excuses, excuses...

In the case of questioning a vulnerable child, I don't know, but maybe it would be a detective or some other special officer who wasn't armed. Generally, though, I think we are used to seeing armed officers and we don't notice it as you do.

Ds (6) was told off by a police officer recently. He went off on a jaunt, taking his 3 yr old sister, one morning before school. I panicked, called emergency, and the police arrived just as dh found and returned the dcs. The (fully armed with bullet protection vest) gave ds what I considered to be a very appropriate reprimand. Not scary - just serious that he mustn't wander away and put his sister in danger. It certainly didn't bother me that he had a gun.

BTW, age of consent in Italy is 14, so nothing wrong there with a 15 year old getting it on with an 18 year old, or a 16 year old with a 19 year old (not exactly unusual in the UK either tbh).

The basis of the alienation of the children from their father seems to have been as follows:

• if Mummy goes to Italy, Mummy will be put into prison
• if you go to Italy, you will never see Mummy again, because Mummy will be put in prison

even though no criminal complaint was ever filed in Italy, and none threatened either.

They then said that Mummy has no money and can't go to Italy for that reason, even though the father was ordered in July 2011 to pay A$8000 to facilitate the mother's travel to Italy, which he did pay.

In fact Mummy had, and would have, no difficulty finding employment in Italy being fully bilingual, and indeed the father's hometown Pontassieve is not exactly Buttfuck, Indiana, but a pleasant town 15 minutes and ?2.40 by train from Florence, where she had worked previously, and part of a metropolitan area of over 1.5 million people.

I think that might be it tryingtoleave, I didn't even clock that the AFP were armed.

Because in my experience all police are armed. The bobbies with the stick were a surprise to me!

Skippy, I LOVE your posts on this!
Do you live in Italy? You sound pretty knowledgeable about the place for someone from Buttfuck, Indiana.

A couple of points I would like to make. Why do these girls want to stay with their mother and not return to their father?

A far as the family court goes I have yet to meet a honest lawyer it all come down to money is it a fact that lawyers have a large cow on the wall that says first milk them dry, there is no true justice in this country.

Skippy yourFriendEver true is that a dig at catholics?