Finally, after what seems ages, Anna Mathews is back in Kollam from the UK with her five-year-old son Samuel. Sam, as she calls him, is an adorable and precocious child who has been the sole bright spot in her life ever since she had a messy divorce followed by a custody battle. She was married to James Pierce, a British citizen settled in Fort Kochi.
The world came to know about the kidnap of Sam by his own dad through a heart-breaking Facebook post on January 13 by Anna. Her ordeal began after a court in Kerala had allowed James the company of Sam for six days after Christmas on condition that he would be returned to the mother before December 31. On January 6, the Kerala Police registered a case on Anna’s complaint that her son was missing. “After you have a child, you cannot miss their presence anywhere you turn in the house. I can’t run away from Sam’s books, toys, clothes, pictures he’s made, curtains I made for him, the fridge and kitchen is stocked with his favourite foods, and his Christmas gift that Santa delivered to our temporary home address which is lying unopened,” wrote Anna.
The post, accompanied by a photo of Sam kissing her and the lookout notice for James, went viral and she received overwhelming support from all quarters. “I was nervous about things getting out of hand and receiving unsavoury responses, but I got only overwhelming support, which truly made me feel better. Sadly, my ex-husband later suggested in court that I gladly used social media for 15 minutes of fame,” she says.
On January 19, she learnt that James had managed to sneak into England through Kathmandu with fake travel documents since his passport had been submitted in court. He had hired a vehicle in Kochi and driven down to Nepal, in what was clearly a well-planned operation.
Anna decided to give him the chase by travelling to the UK. “The officials of the British High Commission in India were tricked into issuing a travel document for Sam to travel to the UK, but they were very decent in how they later handled the mistake. Most British institutions that I had to deal with worked in the same considerate and efficient manner. When faced with a problem, bureaucratic or otherwise, they wanted to sort it out rather than make it worse. If you do not have a particular supporting document for some application, they are willing to consider alternatives, rather than make you go to different departments to get this elusive paper. This reduces the workload for officers and for the applicant. I wish our government offices could function like this.”
Initially, she contacted a British NGO named Reunite, which works with parents of abducted children. “I was amazed by how they worked with me through every step. They advised me to hire someone from the list of solicitors provided on their website, and telephoned me almost every other day to find out how things were progressing legally and how I was feeling emotionally. It was like having someone on my side in London,” she says.
Anna chose a solicitor who was recommended by another London solicitor friend. She prepared a statement based on papers from court proceedings in Kerala. The solicitor then selected a barrister to represent Anna in court. “I met both ladies on the day of the proceeding. I was surprised by how young they were; but it didn’t come in the way of how efficiently they handled my case,” says Anna. The welfare of the child is given paramount importance, so Sam was never summoned to the Family Division of the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Recalls Anna: “My case was kept for the last that day because the judge wanted to wind it up in one session. He impressed me with his knowledge of Indian law and how he had read our voluminous Kollam Family Court and Kerala High Court orders and quoted relevant parts from it. The proceedings took about three hours.”
Tom made the mistake of representing himself. As Anna points out, a solicitor would have advised him to admit his mistake and find an amicable solution instead of being belligerent and behaving as if he had not committed any crime.
Though she received legal aid to cover court costs, air tickets and other expenses made it a costly affair. It was also an emotional roller coaster ride. “Many times I felt that the fight was too daunting. Many times I felt disbelief about the situation. The stories of other people whose fight seemed much harder than mine inspired me.” What also helped was that her parents, family, friends, and old and current colleagues rallied around the journalist. “DGP Lokanath Behera is the greatest hero to me and to my family and friends now. He is an amazing policeman and a good human being.”
As Anna had written in her Facebook post, Sam can’t bear the thought of sleeping alone in a room and tells her that he would do that after he becomes a policeman. She wants him to be a policeman like Behera.
