Mum’s tears of joy after find her girl after 8 years
Mum hopes she can finally be reunited with little girl she last saw when she was just three
Jan O’Hara on her relief over daughter taken to Spain by her dad after bitter split
A mum who has spent eight years searching for her missing daughter broke down after the Sunday Mail revealed we had tracked down her ex- partner who had fled to Spain with the little girl.
Jan O’Hara has not seen Leonie, now 11, since she was a youngster after a bitter split with ex- boyfriend Christopher Stuart.
The dad broke a court ruling banning him from taking her out the country in 2012 and flew to Spain.
Despite repeated attempts through the years by Jan, a private investigator and involvement from Interpol as well as the Spanish authorities, no one could trace the former squaddie and his daughter.
But last week we found Stuart, 30, living at a terraced house in Derbyshire after moving back to the UK with Leonie.
Jan, 32, said she could barely believe what she was hearing after we broke the news to her that Leonie had been found.
She said: “For eight years I have had no idea where my baby was. The shock, relief, the happiness and the sadness just hit me like a wall.
“I can still remember the first moment I cradled her in my arms. I still remember how her hair feels when I run it through my fingers and how her bright brown eyes light up when she laughs.
“I still sleep with the teddy I bought her for her fourth birthday but was never able to give her. I now hope one day I finally can.
“More than anything, I just want to tell her I’ve never stopped looking for her and that I love her with all my heart.”
The mum of five now hopes she will finally be reunited with the little girl who she last saw when she was just three years old.
Stuart was stunned after we approached him at the house in Derby where he is now living and demanded to know how we had found him.
We told him about Jan’s heartbreak and her desperate struggle to find Leonie. He said: “I’m not interested. I’ve still got Leonie and I’m not going to let Jan see her.”
His dad Keith Stuart said: “I am her grandfather and feel our side has to be heard.
“Since Leonie has lived in Spain, she has flourished. She is confident, fluent in Spanish, an accomplished equestrian and she does not, under any circumstances, want to go through the pain of seeing her mother.”
In March 2012, Stuart, who is originally from Derby, had been living in Cambuslang and applied to Glasgow Sheriff Court to take Leonie to Spain.
He told the court that he wanted to move to the Costa del Sol for work and to live with his parents Keith and Cheryl
Stuart. Sheriff Wendy Sheenan refused his request after Jan’s objections and set a hearing for April that year.
But before that could take place, Stuart disappeared with Leonie. Police could not help as they said the girl was with her father. But the Scottish Government helped Jan make an application under the 1980 Hague Convention for the return of her child.
However, the trail ran cold as the Spanish authorities were unable to locate her.
In February 2014, a private investigator found an address for Stuart’s family in the Manilva area of Malaga but neighbours said that he and his parents had moved a year before. Jan, who is also mum to Kiara, 14, Justin, 13, Charlie Claire, four, and two- year- old Meghan, said: “I just don’t understand how Chris has lived with himself all this time. I don’t know how he has managed to look Leonie in the eye every day knowing he has torn her away from her mother who loves her.
“He defied the court and secretly left the country. He deliberately stayed hidden for years because he knows he wasn’t allowed to do that.
“All I knew is that Chris was probably in Spain with his parents and sisters. But for whatever reason, they have refused to answer emails, calls or Facebook messages for years.
“After he left, I heard nothing. No one could find her.
“Does he know how that feels and what that does to a mother? It destroyed me.
“No matter how he feels about me, I’m her mum and she is my little girl. I carried her inside me and felt her kicking as she grew. I gave birth to her and I held her in my arms and kissed her forehead.
“I worry what Leonie was told about me.