MY BABY WAS KIDNAPPED WHILE I SHOPPED
MAL HASN’T SEEN HER LITTLE GIRL SINCE SHE WAS 12 WEEKS OLD
Ablack and white photograph of a newborn baby and her mother is Mal Szymanowicz’s most treasured possession.
It’s one of the only photos she has of her daughter, Talia, who was cruelly abducted by her father, Maher Belaid, 38, on a family shopping trip when she was just 12 weeks old.
‘My heart is utterly broken and my arms are empty,’ Mal, 37, tells New Idea. ‘I haven’t seen my daughter since, and I wonder if I will ever see her again. I miss her every moment of every day.’
Mal was still breastfeeding baby Talia when, on a shopping trip for baby clothes, her husband Maher pretended to go for a coffee but instead left the country with their daughter, taking her to war-torn Libya to place in the care of his mother.
Originally from Poland, Mal met Maher, a Libyan national, in the UK. They’d met in the pizza restaurant where they both had jobs. Maher was a delivery man.
‘He was charming, funny and kind,’ Mal recalls. ‘One day I’d been off sick with a horrible cold and he’d turned up unexpectedly at my home to see if I was OK.
‘I was touched by his kindness and we soon became friends.
‘We loved cooking and films. We both understood what it was like to be an outsider. It gave us a connection and we fell in love.’
In time the couple married and Mal became pregnant.
‘I adored children and I’d been a nanny before I’d met Maher. I couldn’t wait to become a mother,’ she says.
But as her bump grew, Maher’s interest towards her and their baby shrank. Instead of cooking and cuddling up on the sofa, Maher was distant and cold.
‘He had no interest in the baby and wouldn’t even come to antenatal classes,’ Mal recalls.
Finally, on July 29, 2012, Mal gave birth to a beautiful baby girl with Maher at her side.
‘It was a traumatic birth but I loved her instantly,’ Mal says. ‘Maher chose her name, calling her Talia – which means light.
Two days later, Mal brought Talia home from hospital.
‘I felt disappointed that Maher didn’t even surprise me with a bunch of flowers,’ she says.
‘But there was another surprise in store for me, too. When Talia was five days old Maher flew to Libya to see his family. It made me wonder if he really did love me and the baby.’
Mal then discovered something very worrying. Three years earlier one of Maher’s relatives had taken his young daughter from the UK to Libya and had refused to return her.
‘I remember feeling very panicky that Maher might have planned something similar,’ Mal says. ‘When he arrived home I told him my worries.’
‘How could you think that?’ he’d said to me. ‘I would never take Talia from you.’
‘I honestly felt guilty for doubting him. I told myself I was overreacting and resolved to put our problems behind us and get on with being a family.’
But living with Maher wasn’t easy and the couple constantly argued. One day Maher said they should call time on their marriage, and Mal agreed.
‘Deep down, I didn’t want us to split up. I wanted us to be a happy family,’ Mal says.
Maher then agreed that Mal could take Talia to Poland for a few days to see her family.
Two days before she and Talia were due to leave, Maher suggested a shopping trip.
‘I put Talia in her pram and the three of us set off for town. We browsed in a few shops and Maher said he’d go for a coffee so I could shop on my own. I believed he was being thoughtful and kind,’ Mal recalls.
BETRAYED BY THE FATHER OF HER ONLY CHILD
‘I remember him smiling and telling me to call him when I was finished. I couldn’t have been longer than 30 minutes.’
When she called him on his phone, Maher told Mal that he’d bumped into a friend and he would meet her at home. Bemused, she agreed.
But back home, Maher and Talia were nowhere to be seen.
‘I called Maher but his phone was switched off. An hour went by and then another. I started to worry. I thought maybe there’d been an accident,’ Mal says.
‘I rang all the local hospitals. Then I called the police.’
At 10pm that night the police arrived at her home and soon after Maher called her.
‘He said something that made my heart drop through the floor, says Mal. He told me he was in Tunisia and he had Talia with him. He told me he wanted to teach me a lesson.’
Mal says she started to shake and the line went dead.
‘I remember screaming to the police officers over and over: “He’s taken my baby!”’
In the days that followed Mal hired a solicitor and wrote to the Prime Minister and the British Embassy in Libya. But there was nothing anyone could do.
A month passed and Maher called Mal on Skype and told her she could talk to Talia.
‘I could see that she’d grown such a lot. Through my tears I told her I loved her,’ Mal says.
‘My grief was like a physical pain. It was indescribable.’
When Talia turned one, Mal was allowed to see her on Skype again, but it was heartbreaking.
‘She didn’t know who I was and she called Maher’s mother “Mum”,’ Mal says.
Then, six months later, Mal received a phone call from the police. They’d arrested Maher at London’s Gatwick Airport.
‘My heart leapt as I asked if Talia was with him, but he’d left her behind in Libya,’ Mal says.
Maher was charged, and later found guilty of abduction at Newport Crown Court. He was jailed for six-and-a-half years. He was ordered to return Talia, but refused to co-operate.
‘Losing Talia is a neverending nightmare,’ Mal sobs.
‘It’s a constant ache in my heart and I cry every day.
‘I’m her mother and I’ll never, ever, rest until she is home.’