The letters from love-tug children ‘ begging not to go back to dad’
FOUR children found after going on the run with their mother in Wales have written letters begging not to be made to live with their father in Spain.
As their mother, Jennifer Jones, was held by police, family members released hand-written notes they claim prove a judge was wrong to order them to be sent away.
In one, Jessica, 14, writes to the judge: ‘I am not happy at all... I do not want to go back to Spain,’ underlining the word ‘not’.
She adds that she is ‘scared’ to be with her father and is ‘finally feeling brave enough to speak up for myself’.
In another, nine-year- old Eva writes to her mother that she wants to ‘live with you in Wales for ever’, while a Mother’s Day card signed by all the children says that ‘we must keep strong’ and ‘will be together’.
Miss Jones, 45, her partner John Williams and her children Jessica, Tomas, 12, Eva and David, eight, were yesterday discovered safe and well in Gwent, Wales, after 30 hours on the run.
They left grandmother Brynelda Jones’s house in Llanelli in the early hours of Tuesday after a judge ordered the children be sent to Majorca to live with their father.
Miss Jones and Mr Williams, a builder in his 40s, were arrested and are being interviewed at a local police station.
Miss Jones, an English language teacher, faces a possible jail sentence for being in contempt of court by ‘abducting’ her children. She will appear at the High Court today.
During their time on the run, Miss Jones told family members she had acted drastically to ‘ protect’ her children from their father, Spanish Lieutenant Colonel Tomas Palacin Cambra, who she claims was abusive towards her and the children. He denies the claims.
Miss Jones has fought a bitter custody battle with her former husband since their 12-year marriage ended in 2008. She has tried to run away with the children once before.
Their father was granted custody in the Spanish courts, but the children return to Wales to spend the summer holidays with Miss Jones and her family.
Last week she failed to send them back, and a High Court judge ordered her to return them to Spain by midnight on Friday.
She failed to do so, and lost an appeal on Monday. But when police officers and social workers went to her home the family had disappeared.
At a hearing on Tuesday, Mr Justice Roderic Wood said he was ‘very concerned about the children’, launching a national hunt for the runaway mother. After they were found yesterday, grandmother Brynelda Jones, 78, said returning them to Spain would be ‘like sending lambs to the lion’s den’.
‘They want to be together with their mother,’ she added.
‘In the house they were living in [in Spain] they wrote all over the walls, “We want to live in Wales”.
‘I’m just trying to do things right’
‘I spoke to her yesterday. It seems ages ago. She spoke and said, “Don’t worry, Mum. The children are safe. Of course they are safe. They are with their mother, protecting them. And I don’t want them to go back to be with their father. I want them to be heard.
‘I did this to protect them, they don’t want to go back to Spain. I love them – as a mum what else can I do?’ Last night Mr Palacin Cambra, 52, said Miss Jones had ‘persuaded’ the children to make false allegations about his treatment of them in an attempt to win a custody battle.
‘My concern all along was for my children’s welfare. I am relieved and delighted they have been found safe,’ he added.
Mrs Jones said the children had written to her and her daughter frequently, making it clear that they want to live with their mother. Jessica had also written to the judge.
Mrs Jones said Jessica had threatened to create a huge fuss, kicking and screaming on the plane if she was forced to return.
In a letter written two weeks ago to the judge, she added: ‘I love my mum and dad but I’m just trying to do things right and to say the truth.’
In a note to her mother she wrote: ‘You’re the best mum in the world! Thanks for everything.’
A note from Eva states: ‘I wish to go to Wales soon.’ After three kisses, she adds: ‘P.S. Wales is the best.’
The couple’s eldest daughter Sara, 16, who is in Spain with her father, wrote to her grandmother: ‘I really miss you and wish I was in Wales. It’s going to be my birthday wish.’
Miss Jones met her former husband 16 years ago when she was working in Tenerife, where he was stationed an Army captain.
They married and lived in Spain until they divorced.
His lawyer Carolina Marin Pedreno, said under the Hague Convention and European regulations the UK court was obliged to return the children to Spain.
She said the judge, having studied a report, had ruled the children had no genuine objections to returning to live with their father and had merely expressed a preference for living with their mother.
Before returning to Britain, the children’s address in Majorca was listed as an army barracks in the centre of the island’s capital, Palma.
The building is protected by a military checkpoint and CCTV and the windows are barred.