Father fears for safety of girl, 6, taken to Poland by her mother
A UNIVERSITY teacher says he fears for the safety of his six-year-old daughter, who has “disappeared” since being taken to Poland by his estranged partner.
He claims that despite court orders from both the English and Polish courts for his daughter’s return, the girl’s mother has gone into hiding with the child.
The father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has accused the Polish police of failing to enforce the orders of their own courts, and says the British government have offered little help.
And he is appealing to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to put more pressure on the Polish authorities to find the girl.
He fears his daughter, who was born in Suffolk and went to primary school in Newmarket, is suffering from being uprooted and taken from him.
His battle began in August 2018, when the girl’s Polish mother, who had lived in Britain for 18 years, took her daughter to her home country for a visit.
The father, from Essex, says he only learnt the pair had left the country in a text from his former partner saying: “For now we are not coming back to UK. [The child] is safe and happy, I will let you know any further information later.”
He said: “That text changed my life forever, inducing incredible amounts of stress and anxiety, and a financial burden that we will suffer the consequences of for years to come”.
The Family Division of the High Court has made the child a ward of court and ordered her immediate return.
But the father says that instead of complying, the mother disappeared with the girl after removing her from the Polish-English nursery she was attending.
Last February, he won an order from the regional court in Lodz ordering his daughter’s return to England. An appeal by the mother against it failed.
But the father claims the mother has now gone into hiding and the Polish police have made no attempt to find her, because they regard it as a civil matter.
He said: “The police have … taken no action to find my daughter or her mother. They are just as much in contempt of court as the mother is for the unlawful abduction and retention of my daughter in Poland.”
He has written to ministers, including the Prime Minister, but says “the FCO just refers everything to the British Embassy in Poland for action, and they have already said to me that there is not much they can do”.
The father said the British
‘The Polish police are just as much in contempt of court as the mother’
Embassy appears to have limited its action to writing just one diplomatic letter to the Polish government.
The girl’s mother has claimed in court documents that the father had a negative attitude towards their daughter’s Polish roots and she feared he was trying to turn the child against her.
She also said she decided to move to Poland because she lost the house she was renting in the UK and was not receiving child maintenance from the father.
An FCO spokesperson said: “We are supporting the father of a British girl who has been abducted and taken to Poland, and are in contact with Polish authorities.”