For eight years I’ve had no idea where my baby was.. I still sleep with her teddy Then you told me The shock, relief, the happiness and the sadness just hit me hard
I worry she has been told I left her or that I didn’t love her. None of that is true.
“I know Leonie has been living with her dad for a long time and I understand I can’t just turn her world upside down and take her away.
“I would never want to hurt or upset her. I just want to see my baby and be part of her life.”
Stuart and Jan met in October 2007 through mutual friends on a night out.
They spent the night together and weeks later Jan discovered she was pregnant.
Jan told Stuar t , a Scots Guard based in London, that he was to be a father over the phone.
She says there was no further contact with him after she broke the news and she vowed to raise her baby alone.
But when she was eight months pregnant, Stuart left the Army and came to Scotland to live with Jan. When Jan’s mum suf fered a ser ies of hear t attacks, she said Stuart suggested she went to care for her for a few days while he took Leonie to his mum’s house in Cambuslang.
It was then, Jan claims, that Stuart refused to allow her access to Leonie.
Following a lengthy civil action in 2011,
Stuart was awarded a residency order for Leonie and Jan given a visitation order.
Jan said: “Chris was awarded a residency order but I still had a visitation order allowing me to see my daughter. When he applied to take her to Spain to live, I nearly collapsed. The sheriff refused his request and set another court date for when we could both give our evidence but he disappeared with her.”
Legal sources say that the court will take a very dim view of what Stuart has done, going against a court ruling and keeping Leonie away from her mother.
Jan is now in talks with her legal team to be able to see her daughter. Sol ic itor Joanne McMillan, of Turnbull McCarron, said: “We are dealing with matters on Ms O’Hara’s behalf.”
Family law specialist Morven Douglas, of BTO Family Law Solicitors in Glasgow, said: “If both parents have parental rights and responsibilities, then you must have the other party’s consent to take a child out of the UK.
“Taking Leonie to Spain in this case was not lawful.
“He obviously did know that as he went to court to ask for permission in the first place.
“The fact is that the cour t didn’t give permission and he is supposed to have Jan’s consent or the court’s consent – and he had neither.”
Now that Leonie is back in the UK, Jan’s legal team can appl y for contact.
Douglas added: “I f there is a Scottish contact order in place, allowing a parent to have contact with their child, this order can still be enforced in England.”
Jan’s local MSP James Dornan said: “I’m delighted to hear that , fol lowing the hard work of the Sunday Mail, Leonie has been located and now Jan can have the access to her daughter she deserves.”
I just want to tell her that I’ve never stopped looking for her