I don't know if any of you saw this on TV this week, but I saw it live on the morning programme and it was one of the most disturbing things I have seen in a long time. How a mother lost a battle against her ex husband in the courts of Valencia in Moncada. Three years a go a mother, divorced from her husband who lives in Mexico, left Mexico to come back to Spain and find work to maintain her children. Apparantly the ex mistreated and abused them, eventhough the court here found no evidence of it. How would they? But just over a week ago a judge decided to uphold the right of the father and grant him his "visiting rights" meaning he could take the children back with him to Mexico. But in a desperate attempt to avoid this the mother and the entire village managed to impede the police's work and they failed in taking the children into custody. The mother is convinced that the father will file against her to obtain full custody of the children back in Mexico as she isn't able to accompany them back and this apparantly is motive for loosing custody adding to the fact that she "illegally" took the kids back to Spain without the father's consent, the chances are they will grant him full custody immediately and she won't be able to see them again. So far up to now it appears that the mother made the mistake, but when you started to hear the children : 13 years old and 10 year old twins, you started to realise that what the mother did was in the best interest of the children and the ex is certainly not a good father or a good person. In fact he must be down right evil and the Judge too. The Judge called them into court to inteview the children, telling the mother that they were going to receive a psychological analysis before they took a decision. The mother wishing to get to he end of this took the kids to the court and as soon as the kids entered, the Judge ordered the doors to be closed locking the mother out. It was an ambush and a trap to get hold of the kids. From this point on it starts to sink in with the kids what is happening and they become distraut screaming and shouting through the door for their mother, saying they don't want to go back with their father and asking for help. It was incredible distressing. The screams and the cries were heart breaking. The mother realising what had happened started to loose it and become hysterical. About 30 minutes later a white van starts to leave the courts with the children inside screaming and shouting while the neighbours and the mother try to impede it's exit. While all of this is going on the father is sitting in the front of the van listening to his distraut children begging to stay with their mother. What kind of a father would do that? and what kind of a judge would allow this to happen and not allow a mother to say good bye to her children. The stress the children have been through is unforgivable and totally unnecessary. If this wasn't enough the judge allowed the children to go back to Mexico with their father fulfilling his right to have "holiday visits" but the Judge never defined a date by when they would have to be returned to Spain and allowed them to be taken right in the middle of the school term. As far as I see this it has been an absolute fiasco for the judicial system and a pathetic job carried out by the courts of justice and an embarrassment for the family judicial system. Surely the children have rights and seeing how they were clearly horrified and destroyed by the fact that they had to go back to Mexico, the Judge turned a blind eye and sent them back for ever. I was shocked. I don't know how certain people get to become Judges but this one should be retired immediately. Laws are laws you may say and the judges just follow the law, maybe, but you don't take a child out of school, nor do you ignore the wishes of the children, nor do you set up an ambush inside the court and you certainly let the children say good by to their mother before shipping them off to madrid in the back of a van. Sorry If I've gone on about this but it really affected me and everyone else watching and I was wondering if anyone else has been following the story.
You can read the news article on the EOS news blog, but there is some information in last paragraph which is not eactly accurate:
"The children have now been removed from the family home in Alboraya by the police and were due to fly back to Mexico today."
www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/spainnews/9581/valencia-mum-loses-custody-battle-and-children-sent-back-to-mexico.aspx
They were ambushed in the court and put in a van and taken immediately to Madrid airport! I saw the whole occurance live on TV. My wife was distraut and crying non stop.
What sort of a world are we living in? Does anyone see any sense in this?