I can never go back. I can never let my baby go back – Leigha Collins after fleeing Med
Runaway mum in landmark legal fight to keep her son
Ayoung mum is to launch a landmark legal action to keep her baby son in Scotland after they fled their home in the Med.
Leigha Collins dramatically flew out of Malta with eight-monthold son Hayes days before Christmas after her relationship with his father irrevocably broke down. She says her former partner’s attitude towards her changed completely after the birth of their son, adding: “I felt frightened and alone and had to leave. I can never go back and the thought of my baby going back there fills me with dread.”
Her mother, Cerry, flew to Malta to help Leigha, 18, leave with Hayes and older brother Alfie and travel back to her parents’ home in Fife. The family i s now calling for a change to international law. Lawyer Mark O’hanlon, who specialises in child custody cases, will tomorrow lodge a residency action in court that he hopes will allow Leigha and her children to remain in Scotland.
He said: “I will argue that it would be detr i mental to Leigha and her baby son for them to be returned to Malta and what is clearly an intolerable situation.”
Ateenage mum will launch a landmark international legal action tomorrow to keep her children in Scotland after dramatically fleeing her home in the Med.
Leigha Collins raced to leave Malta with her eight- month- old son Hayes in the days before Christmas after her relationship with his father broke down.
She said: “I felt I had no choice but to flee from Malta. From being very charming and caring after we first met almost a year ago, my partner changed once Hayes was born.
“I felt frightened and alone. I didn’t know who to turn to.”
Leigha’s former partner could now demand his son is returned to Malta and Leigha fears laws intended to stop estranged fathers removing their children to another country could be used against her. Campaigners back her concerns and say the Haig Convention should be amended to protect mothers fleeing troubled relationships. Tomorrow, she will launch a legal fight to keep her son in the UK. She said: “I’m so terrified the law will be used against me like it is being used against other mums. I’m literally being forced to go on the run.
“I’m speaking out because I want to warn others they can lose their own children if this law is not changed.”
Leigha, 18, from Kinghorn, Fife, met her boyfriend, now 19, after she moved to Malta when her parents Cerry and Dougie Collins opened a bar on the holiday island three years ago.
She claims that, at first, the couple were really happy.
Leigha said: “He said he’d treat my oldest son Alfie as his own, and when I became pregnant with his baby he agreed to come to Scotland so we could begin a new life as a family.” Dougie and Cerry closed their bar and returned to Fife, and the young couple and little Alfie soon joined them but Leigha said her boyfriend became homesick and persuaded her to return to Malta, where their relationship broke down.
Leigha claimed on December 1, she became so afraid during one furious argument she locked herself on a balcony.
She said: “I grabbed my phone and called my mum. She told me to get out of there as quickly as I could.
“I literally left the flat with the two babies with the clothes we stood up in. The last few weeks have been hell. I felt very vulnerable.” When Cerry arrived in Malta to help her daughter leave the Mediterranean archipelago, she was shocked by her daughter’s condition.
She said: “Leigha was like a different person. She’d lost weight and it seemed clear to me that she felt unsafe.”
Just before Christmas, Leigha left Malta on a flight to Rome, carr ying baby Hayes in her arms. Hours later, Cerry boarded another flight with Leigha’s other child, Alfie, aged 19 months.
Leigha said: “At the security desk at the airport, they took our passports and studied them for about 15 minutes before handing them back to me. “I was so sick with nerves, I thought I might pass out. But somehow I managed to pull myself together and answer their questions.
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I was so sick with nerves, I thought I might pass out... only when I touched down in Rome did I finally feel safe
– Mum Leigha Collins
“Only when I touched down in Rome did I finally feel safe.”
Leigha’s father Dougie, 48, who runs an upholstery business, said: “The law needs to change so that parents fleeing broken relationships are not dragged back.”
Solicitor advocate Mark O’hanlon, who specialises in child custody cases, will tomorrow lodge a residency action in the Sheriff Court that will allow Leigha to remain in Scotland.
He said: “I will argue that it would be detrimental to Leigha and her baby son for them to be returned to Malta and what is clearly an intolerable situation.
“It is deeply concerning that European law is so often being used to ensure there is no escape from the behaviour that is so often at the heart of so many of these cases, returning those who have tried to escape to the very country they fled leaves them further isolated and without support.
“It’s time the system became far more sympathetic to parents in this situation.”
Britain is one of 101 states signed up to the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction – set up to protect children from the traumatic effects of abduction to a foreign country.
It aims to ensure a child who is taken by one parent without the other’s consent is sent back to the country where they are deemed “habitually resident”. But there is no set definition of what
“habitually resident” is. It has generally been where they’ve been living for the past year, but it’s vague and ultimately decided by individual judges in local courts.
Custody battles can be lengthy and expensive, with parents often obliged to return to the foreign country for court hearings.
Leigha’s father Dougie said: “It cannot be acceptable that a law which was once drawn up to protect parents is now being used to persecute them. It must be changed.”
When we contacted Leigha’s ex on Malta he said: “This is her way of attempting to cast a negative light on me and deny me the opportunity of having a relationship with my son.”