Hunt pledges to help father in custody battle for his murdered son’s children
JEREMY HUNT has pledged to help the father of a murdered British businessman in a custody battle for his grandchildren who are living in China.
The Foreign Secretary, whose wife was born in China, has promised to raise the case during a fourday visit to the country which begins tomorrow.
Ian Simpson, 69, who persuaded his former boss – an acquaintance of Mr Hunt – to forward an email asking for help, said: ‘He did me a favour in getting a note to Jeremy Hunt after I heard he was going to China. A message came back saying, “Yes I will do something.” ’
Mr Simpson’s son Michael, 34, who worked in Shanghai for fashion chain Next, was stabbed to death in March last year by his estranged wife, Fu Weiwei, 29.
Michael’s children Jack, seven, and Alice, six, have since been living with their mother’s parents in a tiny flat in the remote town of Nanzhang in Hubei province.
The Chinese grandparents are understood not to have told the children their father is dead and their mother is in jail for his murder. Yu Zhiwen, the lawyer for Weiwei, who was jailed for life earlier this month, said yesterday the British grandparents had ‘no right’ to apply for guardianship of the children. Asked about Mr Hunt’s intervention, he said: ‘The question of who should take care of the children is a matter of law, not of foreign affairs.’
The Foreign Office declined to comment on Mr Hunt’s engagements, but said: ‘We are supporting the British relatives of Michael Simpson at this difficult and trying time.’