Following a judgment delivered last week by the Court of Appeal, ordering the return of a minor to the United Kingdom, the distraught child’s father yesterday said he was worried about his son’s fate now that his child is back in England.
Speaking to The Malta Independent yesterday, the father said the 12-year-old boy was taken away from him immediately after the ruling, even though the judgment said that the child should be returned to his English mother within one week. “The child did not have the time to go home, pack his stuff and say goodbye. I was only informed by the police that he is now with his mother.”
Following his parents’ divorce, the boy lived with his mother in England. He was allowed to come over to Malta for a holiday earlier this year. He told his father that in England he was not happy in the difficult environment he was living in and this led the father to file a case in the Gozo Court to gain custody of the child.
Last July, the court, presided over by Magistrate Paul Coppini, ruled that the child should be kept in Malta for his own protection. However, the mother filed another case in England and won back the child’s custody on 29 November.
The father filed a case in the Court of Appeal to keep the child. Last week, the Court of Appeal, presided over by Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Joseph D. Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph A. Filletti ordered the return of the child to his mother according to the British court’s decision.
Speaking to The Malta Independent yesterday, the father claimed the boy lives in a much safer environment with him than in England. He also claimed that his elder son moved to Gozo with him because even he found it difficult to live there. The man said for the time he was here, his younger son lived a normal life in Gozo, free from all problems that were assailing him in England.
The father said the boy does not want to live with his mother and in a letter actually implored her to stop “all this court because it’s driving me crazy”.
The father said that once the child is a Maltese citizen, he should have been given the protection of the authorities. He is perplexed that the judgement went against the desire of his son to live here, and is worried about what will happen to him in England.