This extract shows the experience of being the left behind parent AND being treated as an abductor by a foreign court, to protect the abducting parent from re-abduction.

The guilty party is treated as innocent, the not guilty party is treated as guilty.

This backwards ethics results from the lack of cohesiveness between countries legal systems, combined with the greed of legal workers in all countries. These legal-workers are easily deceived and also willing to be deceived, especially when it lines their pockets.

Robin also shows how fathers refusal to enforce their “right” to protect their relationship with their children, allows and encourages personality disordered mothers (and unfortunately some fathers too 15%) to take these bizarre and destructive actions. The problem isn’t just the “judges”.

Would a good liar ever be a good solo parent?

In the book, Robin compares other people’s experiences to her own son’s. This extract collects together her son’s experiences.

Taken In Contempt
By Robin Bowles.

This book is dedicated to my grandson, who is growing up in France, and to his father, who has joined him in exile.

ISBN 0 7329 1101 X.

1. Missing children – Australia. 2. Kidnapping, Parental – Australia. I. Title. 362.82970994

Who can imagine the shock of returning home from an unremarkable day at work to discover your partner has left you and taken your child or children?

To be suddenly and unexpectedly facing the possibility that you will never see your family again?

On 11 March 1999 it happened to Robin Bowles’ son – his child illegally abducted to France by the French-born mother.

This is not an isolated incident – over 90 cases a year are reported in Australia.

Taken in Contempt is the extraordinary account of Robin’s family’s own loss woven together with the stories of other parents of abducted children. it is full of heartbreak, danger and adventure, yet it is also a record of courage and inner strength, and of the crazy, fife-threatening risks people take in the name of love.

Left-behind parents, abducting parents and some of the children themselves have contributed to the book; so have the bureaucrats who have to implement the tough decisions; and the retrievers – men who work outside the law, risking all for someone else’s children.

Fearlessly exploring every side of this complex moral issue, Taken in Contempt is moving, fascinating and utterly compelling.

Foreword
THIS is a book that needed to be written. International child abduction is a problem that bedevils family courts through-out the world. The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects
of International Child Abduction is an attempt to address the problem. It is far from perfect but it is better than the anarchy that prevails in relation to abductions from non-Convention countries.

This book recognises this and also graphically describes the system of private abductions and counter abductions that occur where the Hague law does not apply or is not applied effectively. All abductions have a detrimental effect upon children but this system of private ‘justice’ has the potential to do great harm.

The Family Court of Australia maintains a 24-hour service that is primarily directed at the prevention of child abduction. Similarly the Australian Federal Police pay particular attention to this problem. As the book recognises, the Attorney General’s Department in Canberra also has dedicated people working to assist parents to recover children that have been abducted either to or from Australia.

However, Courts, Judges, police and public servants are not perfect and some of the people in this book are quoted as being highly critical of all of these groups, including some Judges of the Family Court of Australia. Their criticisms may or may not be correct. It very much depends upon the perspective, and the perspective of people involved in bitter family law disputes is often not very objective. While I do not necessarily agree with all that is said in the book and in particular the criticisms expressed of my Court, it is not immune from criticism and I consider that the author has done the public a service in directing attention to the harrowing and difficult problems associated with international child abduction.

The Honourable Alastair Nicholson, AO RFD Chief Justice
Family Court of Australia

[Moderator’s note: I have removed a large section of copyrighted text from the book – while it is a very worthwhile read, it against the rules of MENZ.org.nz to post material available elsewhere on the web. Google penalises websites which plagarise significant sections of other people’s writing. – JohnP]