Parental Child Abduction – A Mother`s story

Published by: Bortført.no

My story

Foto: Marie von Krogh

ABDUCTED TO NORWAY

During a visit to Jersey UK where I lived with my three children for whom I had custody, I made the fatal mistake of letting my Norwegian ex husband take them to school on day. They never arrived. Instead they were abducted by him and his father and smuggled off the Island by private boat to France some 10 miles away by sea, where the grandfather had cunningly placed his Norwegian registered car ready to travel through Europe up to Denmark where they would all take the ferry to Norway the next evening. The children had no passports or ID, and my ex husband admitted that he had planned it all. He had also forged my signature to register the children in the Folk register in Norway. He did not submit the Court Order or the true documents.

The Jersey Court immediately issued an Order for the return of the children with an attached Arrest Warrant, which was faxed to the Police after Kristiansand Port Authority had confirmed they had arrived in Norway.

A false petition made by his Norwegian lawyer was also submitted to the Court prior to their arrival in Norway, and this petition was completely untrue, false in everyway, made with the sole intention to deceive the Court. Attached to it were the illegal registration forms from the Folk register and a forged letter that he claimed I had signed to give him custody of my children. Again, he did not mention or submit the valid Court Order or the Agreement he signed. He knew he would not have been able to register the children if he had.

The British Embassy in Oslo, UK Foreign Affairs Office and the Jersey Royal Court requested Norway to respect my Court Order and return the children. Norway dismissed this. The Attorney General in Jersey contacted the Justice Department in Norway requesting it take into account that the Hague Convention on child abduction in Jersey was about to be ratified, again all requests were rejected. When his next letter asked for the case to be resolved through “Judicial comity”, an action between countries to try to resolve disputes in diplomatic ways, this request did not even receive a reply.

During a hearing in the District Court, the judge concluded that there was no reason to return the children to Jersey, and no evidence or documents suggesting they should be. It was clear the judge failed to read the requests, Court Order and all other evidence, but it is my view that this was all deliberately ignored.

During a hearing in the Court some months later, his Norwegian lawyer stated that she knew of my ex husband’s intention to abduct the children and had drawn up the petition with him prior to him leaving Norway. He himself also stated that he had planned it all for a long period with the help of his lawyer and the Norwegian Consul in Jersey, and he had also had taken advice from the Norwegian Ministry, whom he stated all advised him that the best way to get custody of the children was to ensure he got them to Norway as quick as possible and applied for custody there as he would be favored.

Evidence of the statements they made were submitted to another Court later, which further showed the extent of the Norwegian Consul’s involvement, and proved that my ex and his father had kept the Consul fully informed of the progress of the abduction as they headed to Norway after abducting, and further to inform him they arrived in Norway, and again months later, to inform him of the progress.

The Consul, who was fully aware that there was an existing High Court Order in Jersey for which my ex husband had no rights of custody and no right to remove the children from my care, did nothing. He alerted no police and no authorities Instead, he chose state to my lawyers that although he was informed during many meetings with my ex husband that he wanted to abduct them, and he said he was in Jersey to help Norwegians, not Jersey people. Even after being told of the abduction and knowing my ex husband’s whereabouts, he failed to advise the Police who could have detained him and my children at that point, and prevented them traveling further.

In Court he also lied at first stating quite strongly that he was annoyed his name had been mentioned as he did not know who my ex husband or his father were. He said he had ever had any contact with either of them and had actually never heard of them…. Until however, when confronted with transcripts of his own written evidence by way of letter to me, and also in documents submitted by my Jersey lawyers, his memory returned very quickly and precise.

The judge however, even being aware of all the lies told in Court from my ex’s side, against all the extensive evidence proving my case, against the Court Orders, and also after hearing my ex husband’s own statement of how he had carefully planned the abduction with the help of his lawyer and the Norwegian Consul, took my children and dismissed me as the children’s Mother.

He gave me only 4 hours a week visitation under strict supervision, stating that the FATHER had to be safeguarded against me taking my children home!

And so began a 6 year battle in the Norwegian Courts at all levels, judges who persistently refused to take into account any evidence or background of my children’s lives before Norway. Judges who continuously deprived not only me but my children of their Mother, and made it impossible for me and my children to have any real relationship like we once had or any decent contact for that matter, against all the evidence of what my ex husband did. They did not care he forged my signature, prevented my access, or how he used the children for his own gain, the law was “irrelevant” to him.

My children were happy children. There has never been any history of abuse, alcoholism, drugs or anything untoward in our family. My children had a nice home, a close family, many friends, they were settled in school and most of all, they had a Mother who loved them but all of this accounted for nothing in the Norwegian Courts.

In Norway, it’s okay to abduct children – as long as you are Norwegian”. You can forge documents and give them to authorities because its “irrelevant” or “not valid for the question”. There is no law for Norwegians. The Norwegian authorities actually help their citizens abduct children from abroad, regardless of circumstances or other countries Court Orders.

For 6 years I have been treated like a criminal and subjected to horrific injustice. Many Christmas’s and birthdays with gifts only exchanged in front of impersonal visitors and mostly behind a locked door, never alone. No cuddling or talking with my children as this was seen as me manipulating my children with love. The emotional stress of hearing your child whisper in your ear “take me home Mummy”.

The Court said this was how it had to be as there was a risk I would take my children home to Jersey. Yet I never abducted my children to Norway. He did. But as I was not Norwegian, I was put under strict and extreme conditions, the type of interaction I was allowed with my children is the same given to parents in severe child welfare cases, incest, molestation, family violence, alcoholism and drug addicts, murderers. And all because I had legal custody of my children and we lived in Jersey, but the father wanted them to live in Norway.

I was convicted on assumptions and presumptions by the Courts, penalized by so called “experts” named psychologists and child welfare services who did not have a clue about the situation at all, all who said my children’s lives were “irrelevant” before they got to Norway, and all  who sided with my ex husband and his lies. They all wiped out my children’s previous life. All that mattered was Norway. Their background was unimportant, not relevant they all said. Anything and everything was used against me, yet nothing was said about him or what he did or how he was manipulating the children to his advantage with extreme Parental Alienation… Nothing was either mentioned about his lies. The Court said he did nothing wrong in abducting my children against a Court Order. They looked for ways to praise him instead of seeing him for the calculating lying manipulative abductor that he was.

Legal witnesses were dismissed as irrelevant with judges stating that I had been given too much advice, was focused on the law instead of the fact my children were in Norway, referring to me being the abductor for taking my children home after my marriage failed, having spent only some 200 days in Norway during a temporary reconciliation of marriage period, all despite the fact that I had rights of custody and legal agreements in place.

I moved to Norway to be near my children after they were abducted. Even then I never got a fair hearing. There has been no equality in the law for me.

What is very clear however is that if you’re Norwegian it’s accepted by the Courts, the Norwegian Ministry, the authorities, the psychologists, everywhere you look, it’s accepted for you to go to other countries and abduct your children against your spouse’s custody rights and Court Orders without any fear of repercussion in the Norwegian Courts for doing it. And we only have to look at the Skah case to see this.

Sadly for me, there were no Jersey Elite Soldiers with ties to the UK Intelligence Service to smuggle my children out of Norway back to Jersey on a sailboat. I took the legal route and abided by the law… did it help me?… NO!

Norway took my children regardless of the law. They ripped a Mother out of the lives of three small children whom they had lived with all their life, a happy life full of love and security. They gave them to their abductor on a silver plate after a well planned and calculated abduction by their Norwegian father and grandfather!

This is how Norway treats foreign parents.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Services

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Er det greit å bortføre egne barn til Norge?

Kilde: Bortført.no

Britiske Christines tre barn, 10, 9 and 5 år gamle, ble bortført fra Jersey til Norge i 2005 av sin norske far. Christines ublide møte med norske myndigheter skildres i A-magasinets artikkel ”Dømt til å tape” 11.03.11.

Etter borføringen valgte Christine å flytte til Norge for å være nær barna. Henne ubeskjedne ønske om 50 % omsorg for barna ble avslått av norsk rettsvesen, og domstolen valgte i stedet å gi henne noen usle timers samvær under rigid tilsyn av farens venner, av frykt for at moren skulle ta med seg barna tilbake til Jersey. Barnebortføreren fikk altså rettens beskyttelse, mens moren som ble frarøvet barna ble straffet. Gerard Baudains, tidligere parlamentariker i House of Lords, sier til Aftenposten: ”Det norske rettsystemet er like korrupt som et hvilket som helst land i den tredje verden.” Foto: Marie Von Krogh

I norske domstoler blir familiesaker hemmeligholdt som om rikets sikkerhet skulle stå på spill. Angivelig er årsaken at individet skal skjermes, men når man ser hvilke represalier mennesker som prøver å eksponere domstolene blir utsatt for,synes det som om det egentlige målet er å beskytte domstolene.

Når britiske parlamentarikere sammenligner det norske rettsystemet med tilstander man finner i Uganda, maner det til ettertanke. For eksempel er det uforståelig for briter at norske domstoler ikke benytter stenografer eller lydopptak. Like ubegripelig er det at sakkyndige psykologer skriver lange rapporter med bombastiske konklusjoner etter kun å ha snakket med et menneske i 45 minutter. Der er også problematisk at den samme gjengen sakkyndige begår liknende overgrep i sak etter sak. I Storbritannia og andre vestlige land finnes det standardiserte rutiner for bruk av sakkyndige, men altså ikke i annerledeslandet Norge.

Christine flyttet etter de bortførte barna sine, og norsk rett straffet henne med en samværsordning som ikke kan kalle noe annet enn nedverdigende og en belastende for både mor og barn. Aftenpostens journalist Karine Østtveit beskriver det slik: “Det er denne typen samvær foreldre i tunge barnevernssaker får; de samme smulene av familieliv som rusmissbrukere og voldsdømte kan bli tilkjent. I Christines tilfelle var det aldri snakk om rus eller vold. Dommerens frykt for at hun skulle ta med barna ut av landet, førte til at hun mistet både foreldreansvaret og normalt helgesamvær. – En vanlig ressurssterk norsk mor ville aldri fått så lite samvær . Det er ingen tvil om det, mener advokat Tone  Linn Thingvold.”

Norsk rettsvesen like korrupt som i Uganda?

Jersey er en kronbesittelse av Storbritannia, og innbyggerne har britiske pass. Selv om Jersey har sitt eget innenriksstyre, styres utenrikspolitikken fra London. Jersey er en av De Britiske Øyer og Storbritannia har tiltrådt Haagkonvensjonen, slik at det ville være naturlig om norske myndigheter betraktet disse tre barna som britiske statsborgere (hvilket de er) og returnere dem i samsvar konvensjonen. I stedet har Justisdepartementet og domstolen drevet juridisk flisespikkeri og definert Jersey utenfor britisk konvensjonsområde, uten å begrunne hvorfor – et trekk som gjerne deles med land vi helst ikke liker å sammenlikne oss med.

Christine forteller at barnas farfar, som foretok selve bortføringen sammen med sønnen, er en innflytelsesrik mann pensjonert fra ledende stilling i Statoil. Det er også påfallende at farens prosesskriv var forfattet, og at barna var registrert i Folkeregisteret, med morens forfalskede underskrift, i god tid før bortføringen fant sted. Barnebortførerne hadde også drevet lobbyvirksomhet hos Justisdepartementet.

Den britiske parlamentarikeren Gerard Baudains (bildet) sendte en diplomatisk note til Justisdepartementet hvor han anmodet om at departementet anerkjente kjennelsen fra britisk rett som slår fast at Christines er tilkjent daglig omsorg, og at barna derfor ble ulovlig bortført fra britisk territorium. Justisdepartementet avslo anmodningen. Og som det ikke det var nok ble Baudains nektet å vitne da saken ble behandlet i domstolen!

Justisdepartementets stassekretær Astri Aas-Hansen understreker ovenfor Aftenposten at Christines sak ikke er en konvensjonssak, og at det derfor er opp til norske domstoler å avgjøre saken.  Slik unngår hun selve kardinalspørsmålet, nemlig hvordan Justisdepartementet makter å definere barn med fullt britisk statsborgerskap som ikke tilhørende Haagkonvensjonen.

Tradisjonen tro begrunner ikke Aas-Hansen sin tolkning, men andre gjør: Statsadvokaten på Jersey informerte Justisdepartementet allerede i 2005 at ”Jersey er en av De Britiske Øyer og at Hennes Majestets Regjering i Storbritannia representerer Jersey i utenriksspørsmål”.  Heller ikke finner norsk Høyesterett eller Justisdepartementet det interessant at morens signatur til Folkeregisteret var forfalsket, igjen et trekk som gjerne assosieres med U-land, og ikke siviliserte rettsstater.

Kjell Schevig

Les også Christines egen beskrivelse: “ABDUCTED TO NORWAY”

Les også Aftenpostens artikkel: Fortvilte foreldre ber om hjelp

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Services

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Det Norske rettssystemet er korrupt

Kilde: A-Magasinet, Karine Østtveit 11.3.2011

Opprørte politikere: “Jeg kan nesten ikke tro det. Dette er ting man forventer av land som Uganda – ikke fra Norge”

På telefon fra Jersey er tidligere parlamentsmedlem Gerard Baudains opprørt.

Tidligere samme dag har han sendt en e-post: “Det norske rettsystemet er like korrupt som hvilket som helst land i den tredje verden.. Ring meg.”

Jeg tror jeg har brukt flere hundre timer på denne saken. Vi har forøkt alt. Reiser, møter, brev, telefoner –  ingenting har nyttet. norske myndigheter vil ikke høre. Hvem har ellers engasjert seg på Jersey? – Mange, svært mange. Lederen for parlamentet på Jersey og jeg har flere ganger diskutert denne saken spesifikt. Jeg tror de fleste parlaments-medlemmene er klar over den sier Baudains.

På ett tidspunkt var han også innkalt som vitne, for å redegjøre for Jerseys holdning i saken. Politikeren reiste til Norge for å foklare Jerseys standpunkt – men da han kom hit, ville ikke dommeren tillate vitnesbyrdet hans. Også ved den britiske ambassaden har man jobbet mye med Christines sak. – I denne saken ble det faktisk vurdert å sende en formell note til det norske justisdepartementet for å klage på behandlingen Christine fikk.

Les hele historien i A-Magasinet sin reportasje i dag.

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Child Abduction Prevention

CHILD ABDUCTION PREVENTION The following information is from The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention In light of the high profile abductions of several children, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) encourages families not to panic. Instead, parents need to empower themselves with information that can help protect their children. CHILD ABDUCTION: STATISTICS Parental abductions and runaway cases make up the majority of missing children in the United States. In 2002 there were about 797,500 children reported missing, or nearly 2,185 per day. The vast majority of these cases were recovered quickly; however, the parent or guardian was concerned enough to contact law enforcement and they placed the child into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center – a computerized national database of criminal justice information. It is available to Federal, state and local law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies. Each year there are about 3,000 to 5,000 non-family abductions reported to police, most of which are short term sexually-motivated cases. About 200 to 300 of these cases, or 6 percent, make up the most serious cases where the child was murdered, ransomed or taken with the intent to keep. The NCMEC analyzed more than 4200 attempted abductions from February 2005 to March 2010 and found that 38% of attempted abductions occur while a child is walking alone to or from school, riding the school bus or riding a bicycle; 37 % of attempted abductions occur between the hours of 2:00pm through 7:00pm on a weekday; 43% of attempted abductions involve children between the ages of 10 and 14; 72% of attempted abduction victims are female; 68 % of attempted abductions involve the suspect driving a vehicle. Research shows that of the 58,000 non-family abductions each year 63% involved a friend, long-term acquaintaince, neighbor, caretaker, baby sitter or person of authority; only 37% involved a stranger. SAFETY TIPS FOR PARENTS: Be sure to go over the rules with your children about whose homes they can visit when you’re not there and discuss the boundaries of where they can and can’t go in the neighborhood. Always listen to your children and keep the lines of communication open. Teach your children to get out of dangerous or uncomfortable situations right away, and practice role-playing and basic safety skills with them. Teach your children in whose car they may ride. Children should be cautioned never to approach any vehicle, occupied or not, unless accompanied by a parent or trusted adult. Make sure children know their names, address, telephone numbers and how to use the telephone. Choose babysitters with care. Obtain references from family, friends and neighbors. SAFETY TIPS FOR CHILDREN: Always check first with your parents or the person in charge before you go anywhere or do anything. Always take a friend when you play or go somewhere. Don’t be tricked by adults who offer you special treats or gifts or ask you for help. Don’t be afraid to say no and get away from any situation that makes you feel uncomfortable or confused. Trust your feelings. Don’t get into a car or go near a car with someone in it unless you are with your parents or a trusted adult. Never take a ride from someone without checking first with your parents. Never go into a public restroom by yourself. Never go alone to the mall, movies, video arcades or parks. Stay safe when you’re home alone by keeping the door locked. Do not open the door for or talk to anyone who stops by unless the person is a trusted family friend or relative. INTERNATIONAL PARENTAL ABDUCTION In situations where parents have not resolved the issue of child custody, and one of the parents has ties to another country, there is the risk that that parent might take the child with them to a foreign country. Parents who are in this situation can find useful information about international parental abduction in “A Family Resource Guide on International Parental Kidnapping” published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. For more information please visit www.missingkids.com or call NCMEC’s toll-free hotline at 1-800-843-5678. Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Services Follow our updates on Twitter and Facebook

Top judge says mothers should have children taken away if they don’t let fathers see them

Source: Daily Mail

Mothers who refuse to let separated fathers see their children should have them taken away, a senior family court judge said yesterday. The children should be handed over to the full time care of the father if the mother persistently defies court orders, Mr Justice Coleridge said.

He called for a ‘three strikes and you’re out rule’ by which children would be taken away if mothers ignored three court orders. The judge said that family courts are losing their authority because so many people take no notice of their judgments. Around 5,000 new cases a year come before the family courts in which parents – almost always mothers – defy orders to let the other parent have contact.

Judges are extremely reluctant to jail such mothers because of the damaging effects on the children, so many continue to get away with it. Mr Justice Coleridge, 61, said: ‘If I were to call it three strikes and you’re out it sounds insensitive but something like it perhaps should be the norm.’ He added that occasionally it might be necessary to send a mother to jail.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333549/Top-judge-says-mothers-children-taken-away-dont-let-fathers-them.html#ixzz19hZkaJDX

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Warning of child abduction to sharia law states

Source:The Irish Times, Dublin

FORMER MEP Mary Banotti has called on the Government to monitor the number of reported child abduction cases involving sharia law countries which have not signed international conventions on the issue.

Figures published by the Department of Justice last week showed that a record 141 transnational child abduction cases were dealt with by the authorities last year.

The department said 141 cases involving 183 children were received by the Central Authority for Child Abduction in 2008, an increase of 42 cases on 2007 and the highest annual total since the unit was established in 1991.

However, Ms Banotti, who is president of Irish Centre for Parentally Abducted Children, said it was very difficult to retrieve children who were abducted by one parent to a state that had not signed the Hague conventions on child abduction. Cases involving countries governed by sharia law were particularly difficult to resolve.

“I think there should be a record kept of all children removed to sharia law countries,” she said.

Ms Banotti pointed to a case in which an Irish woman, originally from a north African state, was reunited in January with her four children six years after her husband took them back to their country of origin without her consent. Because the African state had not signed the Hague conventions, the woman had no legal avenue to pursue in order to retrieve her children, who were aged between two and seven when they were taken in 2002.

She was eventually reunited with them in January after her husband was arrested by gardaí on his return to Ireland.

Ms Banotti said the latest child abduction figures corroborated her organisation’s view that the problem remained significant. The centre received reports of seven abductions in the past week.

A major shift in trends in recent years was that, whereas women until recently made up the vast majority of those reporting abduction, today at least half of reports came from men.

While the overwhelming majority of transnational abduction cases investigated here once involved the United States and the UK, recent immigration patterns are reflected in the variety of central and eastern European countries that have appeared on the department’s list in recent years.

In 2008, a total of 33 cases related to states that joined the EU since 2004, including Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

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