International Tug-Of-War!

[fireheart17]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/n...-1226489984517

This is a LOOOONG story that I will try and sum up the best I can (today's article is the current news)

Basically, parents in the middle of a custody battle. Dad apparently won custody. Dad lives in Italy. Mum lives in Australia. Mum wound up taking the girls with her to Australia and they became fugitives. Mum was finally captured and the girls were ordered to return home by order of the international court.

Girls were subsequently forced onto a plane, despite pleas for their mother. Yes, all of them pleaded for her. Now the kids are trying to escape their dad's villa.

[Gravekeeper]

a) Media needs to fuck the hell off and stop jacking it to tragedy porn outside of the estate.

b) Mom is a terrible, selfish person as it sounds like not only did she abduct her children, but she took them away from not just dad but the ENTIRE family and judging by their reaction to being returned spent 2 years turning them against dad.

[fireheart17]

admittedly we don't know the mother's side of the story, so without it, it makes it harder to tell. I just feel sorry for the kids being jacked around though.

[draco664]

admittedly we don't know the mother's side of the story, so without it, it makes it harder to tell. I just feel sorry for the kids being jacked around though.

Uh, yeah we do. The mother is a media whore who's been telling every man, woman, child, dog, cat, goat and bug whatever it takes to get her way.

Four Italian girls who were kidnapped and brought to Australia are being sent home. End of fucking story.

More details: Mother and Father had split and were both living in Italy, sharing custody. Mother asks for permission to take the girls to Australia for a holiday, father agrees and pays for them to go. Mother organises with Australian consular officials that it's a one way trip. (said officials are in hot water for abetting a kidnapping) Mother and kids stay in Australia.

Father wants kids back, goes through legal channels.

Mother fights going back, psychologically poisons her daughters. (one of the younger pair went from saying that "Italy was great" to "I will stab myself if I'm forced to return there" in a few months. These girls need to be separated from their mother.)

Every legal trick the mother tries is shot down because, basically, she's a damned kidnapper. Even the grandmother gets in on the act, by disappearing with the girls when the first judgement came back that they should be returned home.

Kids are Italian citizens, taken from their country. It's a no-brainer that the judges will say, send them back and let the Italian courts decide what to do with them.

Mother decides to involve the media, figuring that it's her best bet. The media eat that shit up.

Hell, the grandmother is reported to have said, "Wonder who'll play you in the movie" to one of the girls in front of the cops.

For all the big shit storm about "WHAT'S BEST FOR THE GIRLS", the fact of the matter is that it's not the job of any court outside of Italy to decide that.

[fireheart17]

Uh, yeah we do.that.

Thank you for actually filling in the rest of the information. I hadn't been following the full story up until today, so no, I did not have the full story. I honestly agreed with one of our columnists who wrote that the mother was being treated like a kidnapper and that's the way it should've been.
Also I'm not sure that our us buddies would've been following the story either.

The only thing that I found slightly disturbing was the kids making a scene at the airport. They'd been separated from their mother for a few days prior to being sent home and during that time, they were reported as being very calm. It wasn't until they got to the airport that they began kicking up a fuss.

[wolfie]

So based on the media's take on this (girls screaming and running when re-united with the custodial parent), if a non-custodial parent kidnaps their children, and manages to keep them away from the custodial parent long enough to brainwash them, then the custody order should be reversed? Fuck that shit - the media is saying that crime SHOULD pay.

[Rapscallion]

the media is saying that crime SHOULD pay.

I think that's an unintentional side effect. What they're really saying is that this story sells newspapers or attracts viewers. After that, everything else for them is secondary.

Rapscallion

[draco664]

. It wasn't until they got to the airport that they began kicking up a fuss.

That should probably read - it wasn't until all the news cameras turned up that they began kicking up a fuss.

[Tanasi]

I think that's an unintentional side effect. What they're really saying is that this story sells newspapers or attracts viewers. After that, everything else for them is secondary.

Rapscallion

Ding, Ding, DING give the man a fat-free do-nut (he's gotta watch his girlish figure.) This was all to sell newspapers and attract viewers.

[Rapscallion]

(he's gotta watch his girlish figure.)

True, true. Got all the curves anyone could handle already.

Rapscallion

[draco664]

Minor update.

60 minutes is doing a piece on the issue. They interviewed the Australian grandmother of the girls as part of their investigation.

Said grandmother now doesn't want her image being used, and went to the courts to try and stop it from being aired.

Her application was refused.

It sounds like her life has been a very stressful since her daughter took her story to the press. She claims to receive daily threats from various groups.

[Panacea]

I just feel sorry for the kids being jacked around though.

That's primarily who I feel sorry for.

The only thing that I found slightly disturbing was the kids making a scene at the airport. They'd been separated from their mother for a few days prior to being sent home and during that time, they were reported as being very calm. It wasn't until they got to the airport that they began kicking up a fuss.

That's because the older girls realized that this WAS. IT. The moment of truth. Up to that point, they were probably in a state of shock. The hysteria might even have been planned by the girls; an understandable though juvenile attempt to stop the transfer. I feel very sorry for them; they've been probably told all kinds of terrible things about their father--that's usually par for the course in cases like this.

It sounds like her life has been a very stressful since her daughter took her story to the press. She claims to receive daily threats from various groups.

Might even be true. It's a nasty business.

[draco664]

The 60 minutes item was interesting, if only for the new allegations that popped up.

The allegations of violence by the father pretty much bombed - the reporter pointed out that there wasn't a single police complaint made, and that the doctor who the mother approached to sign a declaration that the kids had been abused declined to do so, on the grounds that they hadn't been.

The mother's mother arrived in Italy to visit her daughter and promptly took a car hired by the father and stole it - it was recovered trashed in Spain. Something the woman claimed was a non-story when it was brought up.

The mother called a week before they were due to return to taunt the father that they were not going to come back to Italy. They then threatened him with claims that he watched the girls change clothes.

All in all, there wasn't much in the way of facts presented - just a lot of back and forth without proof.

[AccountingDrone]

The mother called a week before they were due to return to taunt the father that they were not going to come back to Italy. They then threatened him with claims that he watched the girls change clothes.

<blink, blink> My dad changed my diapers, and saw me occasionally changing clothing all my life.

[TheHuckster]

<blink, blink> My dad changed my diapers, and saw me occasionally changing clothing all my life.

Obviously there's a difference between changing diapers and merely seeing someone change clothes and doing what is implied here, which is watching his daughters change clothes with the intent of arousal.