Mummy Where Are You? (Revised Edition, new)

by Jeanne D'Olivier

  The transfer of my house to my father was another problem we had to address. It was imperative that we show that this was done as a means of raising funds and not an indication of a premeditated plan to run. The evidence I had found, assisted with this problem too because it showed we were still intending to fund counsel.

  These were the kind of obstacles we had to overcome. Whilst of course we had sometimes considered running away, until the night we fled, it was a fantasy that we never believed we would act upon. We had loved our little house and I didn't want to take M from his friends, his school and everything he loved and knew, especially his grandfather. Until our backs were against the wall on that fateful day in June when we could see no other way out - we had never seriously considered leaving our home. M often asked to go because in the simplicity of his child's mind he saw only that life was hard and could be changed for a better one. Courts, lawyers and Orders were not things we discussed. If Bob the Builder could fix it, then surely Mummy could.

  Another factor that strengthened our case, somewhat strangely were my messages to friends and family on the Social Networking sites Facebook and Twitter. In my state of despair I had communicated my thoughts to those who knew me right up until midnight on the night before we ran - the messages, becoming ever more desperate as I now realised we had no choice but to flee. In doing so, I had left an important paper trail of my increasing despair which clearly demonstrated that our actions were taken as a last resort and the decision to flee had not been made until the eleventh hour.

  The day dragged on and on, the questioning becoming more aggressive - the Prosecutor determined. Earlier that day, I had overheard him talking to his assistant in a loud whisper, "don’t worry we're going to get a conviction on this one.” I wondered how someone who really didn't know me could show such open hostility towards me, but I guess he was just doing his job. How could he know that I was a deeply committed, loving and devoted mother? He knew nothing of the close bond M and I shared. To him I was just a case number, another one to get in the bag and further his career.

  I wished I could show him a snap-shot of the life we had had, with M playing happily in our seaside cottage - the times he had played basketball behind my father’s garage or gone cycling to the nearby lighthouse, our holidays, walks on the beach, carefree and happy. Surely if any of them could see into our hearts, they wouldn't be doing to us what they were now and depriving M of the person who loved him most in the world and always would.

  The crushing blows continued relentlessly. I was many times reduced to tears and so exhausted I feared I may not be able to keep standing. However, I remained resolute in my determination not to sit down where I would be obscured. I wanted to show my strength and dignity and ensure that every word of truth that I uttered could be heard and witnessed by the jury. I prayed silently that I'd find the strength to keep on my feet, as I became increasingly weak and spent, telling myself that my part in this cruel charade was nearly over, gripping onto the wooden panels of the dock as I willed myself to keep upright - thinking only of my love for M.

  I thought back to the day when M had run his heart out at his school Sports day, two days before we fled, winning the cup for his year for the third time running, and my pride that he had left on such a high note of success. He had received the loudest applause ever, but it had been tinged with sadness, knowing that I had to take him from all of this in order to protect him and keep him safe.

  I don’t know how I managed to go on withstanding the harsh cross examination, but I found the strength from somewhere. I spoke every word from my heart and for M and I kept my eye on the goal of reaching into the hearts of the Jury. I gave it my all, never taking the breaks offered by the Judge, preferring to see it through to the quickest end.

  Proving that you have fled because you had no choice, is one of the hardest things to do. In his summations, Phillip made an analogy with a hypothetical situation that should Anne Frank have stolen a car to escape from the Nazis, she would not be guilty of theft as she would have done so to avoid the imminent risk of being arrested and sentenced to death by the Nazis. It was a good analogy for us - we were the Jews, the outcasts, the persecuted here – innocent victims of a fascist regime that turned on good mothers and children. It was perhaps ironic that when I had as a girl, years before entered the local Drama festival, I performed an excerpt from the Diary of Anne Frank and when years later I had auditioned for Drama School, I had chosen this same piece. Had I had some kind of premonition then of what was to come in my life?

  Needless to say, in the Family Court case, my drama training had been used against me to imply that I was a good actress and not to be believed. The fact that I wrote novels had been used to discredit me too- the implication that anyone who wrote fiction must automatically be a liar. It was absurd. If this was the yardstick by which they tried people, then anyone who chose either of these professions would have no chance in the Family Court.

  By the time I came to the end of my cross examination I was sobbing hard and had completely broken down. The Judge again intervened, offering a break but it was Phillip now who insisted I continue. He wanted the Court to see my raw, maternal emotion in the hope of gaining the compassion of the Jury. At the time it seemed brutal on his part but I wasn't thinking strategically as he was. I was very honestly distraught and at the end of my tether. I had never been bullied so hard in my life - the questions, a magazine of gunfire - it felt as if I had been thrown against a wall and shot at over and over in quick succession.

  Finally, the Prosecutor decided he had exhausted his questions. Phillip had no re-examination, so it was over and I wearily came down from the stand and headed to the dock, my legs like jelly, to sit down and draw breath. I was relieved that soon afterwards they adjourned for the day and I was released.

  With the ordeal of giving my evidence over, I now able to speak to reporters from both the Telegraph and the Times and did so. I needed to raise awareness as to what was going on and what could happen to others. I felt I had a moral obligation to bring into the public forum the terrible crime of child snatching by the Organs of State. Too many women were being silenced, gagged and suppressed - intimidated and bullied into accepting their children being taken on false allegations to fulfil the pecuniary needs of those employed to carry out this crime - persecuted relentlessly and stoned to death with lies. Mothers all over England were suffering the same fate. This needed to be exposed - the curtain rent asunder and the evil behind the cloth of gold that protected those involved, torn down - flames of truth to set alight the dry, brittle wooden people whose lack of living moisture, made them nothing more than tinder to be burnt. Those who had lost the sap of life – the essence of humanity, the warm blood of faith, love and hope – those who had become slaves to their wages, their targets to traffick, to adopt out, to steal innocent human souls and whose allegiance was to the Devil, not to God.

  In my mind was a poem I had written long ago to sum up the plight of a battered wife. It held even greater poignancy for me now because the battering was state- enforced by many abusers, not just one.

  CHAMELEON

  Have I always slept in shadows

  cloaked in suppression, waiting?

  Moving ghostlike through the echoes

  of your thunderous footsteps,

  hiding in dark corners,

  wavering in candlelight,

  afraid to breathe

  lest I snuffed out the flame

  of your desire;

  Wax melting quickly

  time running out?

  I saw the crack and slipped silently

  whispering through it.

  How easy to slide unseen away

  from the fear and anger.

  I am so small now,

  I can slip free and float

  into this newfound light.

  I am engulfed in warmth.

  I see the sun.

  My ghostly outlines

  absorb the colour.

&
nbsp; I am defined by this experience,

  this desire, this hope.

  Symphony rich,

  hedonistic,

  Starburst.

  I cry 'freedom'

  and hear the heavy thud

  as you fall out of my sky.

  I was determined not to spend my life walking in shadows or hiding in dark corners. I was compelled to let my light shine as a beacon for others in the same situation and because of that and because of my need to find the voice I had lost, the voice of myself and my son – I tried, with difficulty, to see this experience as an opportunity for the truth to be heard and to try to make change.

  I firmly believed that the power of my love for M, a mother’s love, complete, selfless, unconditional and spiritual would win the day. How could something that was rooted in the strongest bond, the greatest love known to man, a mother’s love for her offspring, not be stronger than the evil of those who had only hatred and anger in their hearts?

  I let love be my driving force to give me hope and strength to endure that day. I belittled those in my mind that sought to bully me, reminding myself that bullies are weak people and that as long as I focused only on M and our bond, that I would be given the right words to say. All would come right and M would return to me. No other outcome was tolerable or just. I had to have patience, but whatever the outcome, I had now done and said all I could on the stand.

  The reporter from the Telegraph had been in Court that day and he congratulated me on what he saw as “the most compelling evidence he had ever had the honour to witness.” I was not seeking accolades, nor trying to come off as some great orator, I was speaking my truth only, my truth and M’s for our Human Right to a private and family life – a right to any life at all without fear.

  I had seen how bravely my son had endured all that had been thrown at him in his short life and stayed strong. I was so proud of him and I wanted to do my best to live up to the expectations he should and must have of me to fight with all I had. I would go on fighting for justice and for his safe return forever if I had to. I thought only of his freedom during the trial, never my own.

  The next day I went into Court, exhausted but able to relax a little as my part in this scene of terror was now over - a matter of record. Now it was the turn of our witnesses.

  I fingered the bracelet around my wrist that Sophie had given me and watched as one by one my witnesses took the stand.

  I was still tired from the previous day which had ended with an interview with the well-known investigative journalist from the Time, who had told me that she thought I was an amazing woman. I was moved by this, but I was no more amazing than any other woman or mother who has withstood injustice in the family court. All mothers are amazing for their children and they are for us. No maternal bond can be anything less. We are joined by our hearts, by our breath, by our souls and as we breathe life into the tiny forms we create, they breathe life into ours and we are born anew.

  During the course of the trial, I hadn't been able to meet up with the lawyers. That had suited me, as I was so exhausted at the end of each day, that all I wanted to do was to soak in a hot bath and watch rubbish on television, cuddling the dog and trying to get what sleep I could.

  Sadly my witnesses were less able to cope with the stress of the Courtroom. Mostly they appeared terrified. My father came across as a slightly confused old man, although he was not afraid to say what he thought – he didn't allow his emotions to show and I silently willed him to speak from his heart and let them see something of the wonderful grandfather he'd been and the love that he felt for M. He did his best but, overwhelmed by the experience and disorientated, he held back his emotions and focused on his bewilderment and anger. It is in man's nature to want to fight those who harm their children and grandchildren and being powerless to do so for Dad, brought a sense of impotence that was hard to bear.

  A friend who had seen M and I many times together, was a nervous wreck on the stand and became tongue tied and unable to express the beautiful relationship that M and I shared.

  Our former GP astonished me when she told the Court that I'd never discussed the abuse with her. This was simply not true. I had emailed her many times about the disclosures that M had made to me and I just couldn't understand why she didn't tell the Court this. Perhaps she feared losing her job or was afraid of being turned on herself by the system, or maybe she was simply too confused and overwhelmed. I think she hadn't understood the importance of the sexual abuse to our defence of necessity and may even have felt that my not accepting the finding of no abuse, would be detrimental to our case. Whilst that might have been true before the Family Court Judge who made the finding, it was critical now to speak out about what we had both then believed had happened to M to demonstrate why I had run.

  As each witness took the stand, I felt an increasing sense of disappointment. Their voices were too weak. How could they share my fear, my passion for my child and our plight? Many of them had never been in a courtroom, but I longed for them to demonstrate more strongly, what they had witnessed of my love for M and to celebrate it as I had done.

  The GP’s denial remained the most damaging testimony to our case but she had clearly misunderstood what was needed and as I suspected she had thought that she would anger the Court and harm us if she mentioned it. This was more a failure on the part of our lawyers for not preparing her properly before the trial.

  Too many people were focused on appeasing the Court and not speaking out for the truth. I was truly grateful to all who took the stand in our defence and particularly for the long-standing and unfailing support of our GP who remains angry at what happened to us to this day, but whether my lawyers gave witnesses the wrong advice or whether they simply hadn't understood our case well enough, the evidence presented whilst doing us no harm, was nowhere near strong enough to really support our defence of necessity.

  I knew the GP had to be careful. She wasn't sufficiently qualified to be considered an expert on sexual abuse and it was one of the biggest, if not the greatest, failings of the family court Fact Finding proceedings that the Judge did not seek expert opinion on this subject. Perhaps if we had had a more qualified expert then, we would have had a different outcome altogether. But things happened in island courts that simply didn't meet the standards held by Courts elsewhere. Some of this was down to lack of resources and some of it was down to lack of accountability, but it should not have been the case that a wrong finding should result from inadequate procedure.

  Phillip was strong in Court and came across as eloquent and polished in both Courts, particularly by comparison with the local lawyers. By the time we reached the criminal case, we had a legal team of five, my QC, the Junior barrister, a solicitor from Brian’s firm, his assistant Julie and Brian himself. It seemed ludicrous that so many people were needed to defend me – it was also costing a fortune. Were they all really necessary? I somehow doubt it and when I went to pick something up from the apartment some time afterwards, I was shocked to see the amount of liquor that was stashed in one of the kitchen cabinets. They had clearly socialised hard and whilst they may have deserved a relaxing drink at the end of the day – I wondered how much of their relaxation had formed part of our legal fees.

  I don't, however, include Phillip in this criticism or the Junior barrister who assisted him. They were both professional from start to finish.

  On the third day of the second week, the night before we were due to get the verdict from the Jury, I was again allowed to have contact with M. Once again, I had had to fight against the Department for this who tried to convince the judge that I would be in no fit state to see him during the trial. I knew otherwise. I would stay strong for M under any conditions and had done so many times over the last few years. I insisted they allow me to see him. Who knew when I would see him again? Eventually, after much battling they conceded. The Judge couldn't see anything wrong with this fortunately and gave his consent. He even brought that day's hearing to a close sligh
tly early so that I could get to the Contact Centre in time to see M after school. I hoped this was a sign that he was fair at least.

  It was on my way to contact that I received a text message from Mags to say that she had bad news about one of our school friends. My heart sank and I had a strong sense of doom, fearing I knew exactly who it was.

  I rang Mags straight back, but told her not to tell me anything until I had had contact with M. It was vital that I be able to give him a positive time with me before possibly losing my freedom. Despite my best efforts to put it to one side, the text message stayed in my mind and I found it difficult to concentrate.

  We tried to have as normal a time as we could under the circumstances. I had changed into jeans and T- Shirt so that he wouldn't have any inclination that I had come from Court. We weren't allowed to leave the centre on this day, so we played with Lego and built a Lego home – much like our dream home in America. We sat crossed legged on the floor as we'd done so many times at home and tried to created from plastic bricks, the kind of world we had had before this nightmare began.

  M and was quiet and a little subdued, but we both concentrated hard on the task and tried to recreate the kind of playtime we had so often shared before. The time passed in a flash and was soon over. I hugged him long and hard, not knowing when I'd see him again. He clung particularly tightly to me, saying “see you next week Mummy” as if he were willing it to happen. I wondered how much he knew, but could not ask him. Instead I smiled and said “yes,” trying to sound confident. I didn't want to alert him to the fact that I might be behind bars by the following week. As usual he called “I love you the world and back," all the way down the stairs until I could hear him no more.

  I set off for home, tears in my eyes and found somewhere safe to pull in and park. I made the call with my hands trembling and my heart beating fast. Please God it would not be the news that I suspected. It was.