Mummy’s home
Mother exiled to Med island by Scots court finally reunites with her boys
A young mother ordered into exile by a Scots court during the pandemic has been allowed to return home, we can reveal.
Leigha Collins wept with joy as she was reunited with her oldest son, Alfie, two, who she has not seen since being told to return to Malta with baby Hayes 10 months ago. She had fled the island in fear of her violent ex.
Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon, who had met Leigha’s parents to discuss her plight, was delighted the family was together again. She said: “I am absolutely thrilled to hear that the long ordeal of Leigha and Hayes has finally come to an end with the welcome news they are home in the loving arms of their family.”
Leigha feared being stranded on Malta for years as she fought a protracted custody case, while eldest son Alfie remained in Scotland, almost 2,000 miles away. However, after months of negotiations, Hayes’ father Kyle Borg, 21, allowed them to return to Scotland after Leigha agreed he will be able to see his son four times a year.
Yesterday, Leigha told how she was overcome with emotion when she saw her sons happily playing together again for the first time in almost a year. Tearfully, she said: “Hayes is delighted
he’s got his brother for the first time in almost a year. Leigha said: “hayes is delighted he’s got his big brother to play with again, and seeing them together brought tears to my eyes. They missed each other so much.” Leigha, 19, and hayes, one, landed at heathrow Airport on Friday, where she tested negative for Covid. Yesterday, speaking from her parents’ home in Kinghorn, Fife, yesterday, she said: “I don’t know how I’ve found the strength to survive the last year away from Alfie, my family and everyone I love. It’s been a living nightmare. “I lost count of the times I cried myself to sleep at night. I was alone and terrified in a strange country where nobody was on my side. I feared Alfie would grow up without me and forget I’m his mum.” Leigha, whose plight was highlighted by The Sunday Post before and after she was ordered to take hayes back to Malta, was accused of breaching international laws meant to prevent child abduction. Leigha said: “I had to leave my oldest son Alfie, my parents and the home I knew would give my boys the very best chance of a happy childhood and education, and go to an uncertain future in Malta.
“The Court of Session were assured there would be accommodation and support, but of course once I got to Malta I discovered we were being stuck in a single room in a hostel, which didn’t even have a clean baby chair for hayes to sit in. “Those first days are a blur of tears, breaking my heart missing Alfie and my parents, and wondering how I was going to survive with nobody by my side to fight to get back home.” She met Borg when her family lived on Malta but said their relationship broke down after he began taking drugs, adding: “Towards the end of 2019 after yet another awful row, I fled in fear with my two boys.
“I’d been living on friend’s sofas with no access to support or benefits. I was going to be homeless if I hadn’t left Malta for Scotland that Christmas. “Since Kyle had already agreed I should go home, I was stunned when he suddenly used the hague Convention to launch a legal action against me in Scotland.
“Malta isn’t like Scotland. You don’t get given benefits or a place to stay. I came home because I didn’t want to be on the streets with my children.” Leigha’s parents Cerry and Dougie, took on extra jobs to pay for a lawyer for their daughter and the £2,000 a month for accommodation and food for her and baby hayes. Leigha said: “Every single day was an ordeal and nobody wanted to listen. Every single
thing we take for granted here in Scotland, like getting hayes his baby inoculations, was almost impossible to navigate.” Leigha says she became increasingly stressed while in Malta. Meanwhile, Scottish Women’s Aid called on sister organisations in Malta to support Leigha.
She said: “They were a lifeline. They brought me food and nappies. They tried to help me. Just knowing someone understood what was happening was a huge relief.
“But I also met many other women who’d been through what I was facing. They’d been stuck there for years.
“I made a resolution to harden up and decided no matter what happened, I was
never going to be forced to leave hayes behind.”
Christmas was the hardest time of all for Leigha and her family.
“having to watch Alfie growing and developing from a baby to a little boy on a tiny mobile phone was incredibly painful, he just couldn’t accept I wasn’t there to cuddle him when he fell over. I felt I’d failed him.”
Leigha had to find a way to sign off on a formal agreement with Borg which would allow her to come home. After tortuous months, the paperwork was finalised last week.
She said: “I can’t ever forgive Kyle for putting me through what he did, but I will have to find a way to put it behind me because he wants me to bring
Hayes to see him four times a year. and I want my son to know his father.” “We’ve found a way to come to an agreement which we hope will allow him to be the father he wants to be to Hayes. I can see that he loves his son, and I wouldn’t have denied him the opportunity to see him grow and be a part of Hayes’s life.”
She added: “I am just so relieved to be back home in Scotland, and I want to catch up on the time I lost with Alfie. “It felt very lonely at times and I don’t know how I would have got through it without knowing people were raising my case back home and sending me their support. I can’t thank everyone enough.
“Now, I’m just looking forward to playing on the beach at Kinghorn with the boys, and getting on with just being a family.”
In February, the first minister discussed the situation with Leigha’s mum Cerry Collins and MSP Alex Rowley in an online conference call, and expressed her concern about the case.
Yesterday, she welcomed the pair’s return, saying: “I can only imagine how difficult it has been for a mother and son to be separated from their closeknit family and support group over the past difficult months. This will lift a huge weight – not to mention financial burden – off the whole family.
“Their return to Scotland is a very special reunion – particularly for Hayes who is back with his big brother Alfie. “This has been a protracted and trying set of circumstances and I know that at times it must have felt it was never going to end.” She added: “I’d like to thank the High Commission in Malta and my officials in the Scottish government for the support they provided the family. “While it was inappropriate for me or the Scottish government to intervene on judicial matters – or to comment on the decision made by Lord Brailsford – I am thankful the whole family has been reunited.”
Leigha’s mum, 40, says the last year has also been a nightmare for her and husband Dougie, 49.
Cerry said: “Leigha’s the baby of our family and she’d never been away from home before so it was awful not knowing when we’d get to see her again.
“The worry of what she was facing, on her own in a strange country where everything was so different from how things are done in Scotland, was traumatising for us as well as Leigha.”
Dougie, added: “The relief of having Leigha and Hayes home with us is overwhelming, but it doesn’t stop our anger at how it was ever allowed to happen in the first place. We’ll be paying off lawyers’ bills for years.”