I have namechanged for this as I'm too easy to identify otherwise.
I also thought the story was quite strange and one-sided when I first read it in July but obviously very sad and disturbing. So I talked to one of her brothers who I know and then dug further. This is what I found through a database of Austrian courtcases which confirms one of the incidents I had been told.
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If your German is better than mine you can read it or put it into chrome/google translate which is what I did.
It appears that SHE had custody of the kids initially and it was then removed. I do not know why. There is also reference to the husband being forcefully removed from the marital home.
What I have been told is that she was abused and the incident of the removal related to her husband turning up with a doctor friend attempting to sedate her and section her. She sensibly called the police and the court case above seems to show that the husband's behaviour was completely uncalled for or in more simple terms assault.
I agree it does seem one-sided but as I can see it there are only two extreme options and the truth is likely to lie somewhere between them.
- She is an unfit mother or
- He has manipulated the Austrian system to abuse her and his boys.
The reason why I think 1 is unlikely is for the following reasons:
- He has never defended himself through a campaign of communal newspaper reports and blogging since July. The newspapers regularly print at the end that they have asked for his comment. If there was a clear case that she is an unfit mother surely he would have raised it by now?
- Social services are not infalliable. We known this from experiences in this country - Baby P, Victoria Climbie. I also have a good friend who was in an abusive relationship in another country. She succeeded in divorcing her not so dh and had to deal with social workers. She had 1 who insisted on her exh having sole visitation rights because it's important to protect the father's relationship with the dc. This is a father who had given the oldest child a fear of having her hair washed as he regularly held her head under water while washing her hair. The child was 18 months at the time. So while some social workers are very good this cannot be said of all.
Some of their recommendations sound like sheer lunacy. She's meant to pay alimony and find a job as a cleaner. She has a degree from Cambridge and had not worked since the boys were born. He has enough money to pay for 2 philippinos to look after the boys.
- She is a foreigner living in a foreign country not able to work the system or speak the language to native standard. All these factors prejudice the outcome against her. If you google Austria, divorce, custody, foreign parent you find stories of prejudice against foreigners in divorce cases. In addition, if you look at some of her blogs on the case they reveal different attitudes. For example he made a case that she was an unfit mother because she didn't know how to put a calpol suppository into the babies after an operation. As we all know suppositories are not generally prescribed in the UK and I personally have never had to insert one with 3 kids.
My only reservation is I don't know how much petitions will actually achieve as what she needs is for the courts to give her custody of the kids and let her live somewhere where she can be supported as a single mother. And that in my view needs a good lawyer. However, the more spotlight that's put on this case the less likely it is to be forgotten.
Maybe getting the Daily Mail to look into it wouldn't be such a bad idea....