Police suspect social workers of assistance in kidnapping over custody dispute
Espoo social workers funded mother and son’s move to Sweden and urged them to stay there
|
|
Police suspect four Espoo social services workers of assistance in the illegal seizure of a child. The child’s mother is suspected of kidnapping.
The police have completed their preliminary investigations, and the case has been put forward for consideration of charges.
The suspected kidnapping took place in January 2006, when the child’s Finnish mother and the father, who has moved from Pakistan to Finland, were in the midst of a court case over the child’s guardianship.
The couple were married in 1997 and got a divorce in 2005. In connection with the divorce, the Espoo District Court decided that the parents should have joint custody: the couple’s son was to live with his mother and the father would have visitation rights.
Soon, however, the mother filed for sole guardianship with the Espoo District Court. While the court case was still in progress, the mother asked the district court judge for permission to move out of the country. The judge denied the request while the proceedings were still in progress.
Nevertheless, the Espoo social services funded the mother and the then nine-year-old boy’s move to Sweden from the organisation’s discretionary subsistence support budget.
The mother’s daughter by a different father also moved with them.
While the mother and the children lived in Sweden, one of the Espoo social services workers urged them not to move back to Finland. “You are now in Sweden and you will not return [the boy’s name] anywhere. We will put together a statement with the Swedish social authorities, and a court will ultimately decide where the boy should live”, one of the social workers told the mother in an email letter.
The father reported that he last saw his child on January 18th, 2006.
After that he once managed to contact the mother via email, but thereafter the mother stopped responding to his messages.
The father filed a report of an offence and asked for assistance from the Ministry of Justice.
The legal proceedings on the matter took place in Sweden in September 2006. The Swedish court ruled that the boy was to be returned to Finland. The mother subsequently appealed to the Swedish Court of Appeal, but the verdict remained unchanged.
According to the father, the Espoo social workers refused to tell him anything other than that the child was in Sweden and being well looked after.
The social workers, who are suspected of aiding and abetting in kidnapping, have in police hearings denied having committed any crime. They have admitted that they were aware that the child was in joint custody.
According to the mother, the child protection officials told her that she should not do anything by herself, but that they would take care of everything. The mother says: “When I am given permission from such a level, I cannot be committing a crime.”
The Pakistani father says that after nine months he was finally able to meet his son in November 2006.
The mother has claimed that she is a victim of her ex-husband’s physical and psychological violence, and that the father keeps threatening her and manipulating his son. In 2004 the mother and the two children resided in a protective shelter for about five months.
According to the father, the accusations are groundless and they have been used to cut him off from his son. The father has also said that the Espoo child protection officials did not hear him once during the four years of handling the family’s case or over the violence accusations.
The District Court considered the mother’s fears credible, but according to the court no evidence has been provided to attest to the father’s violent nature.
Presently the Pakistani father is the son’s sole custodian by the parents’ mutual agreement, confirmed by a child protection officer.
Helsingin Sanomat
