Mum abducted daughters and went on run across Australia for four years
A Queensland mother who abducted her daughters from school and took them on the run for four years has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to defeat justice.
Police & Courts
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A Queensland mother who abducted her daughters from school and took them on the run for four years has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to defeat justice.
The woman, who cannot be named to avoid the identification of the children, had been due to face a trial in the Brisbane District Court last week.
But she instead pleaded guilty to the single charge on the morning of her trial.
The 51-year-old’s case was then listed for sentence on Monday this week, however her defence counsel asked for a further adjournment of the long-running legal matter.
The case previously went to trial in May but had to be abandoned after four jurors fell ill.
The court on Monday heard the woman was to be sentenced on the same statement of facts from the trial, in which it was alleged she had abducted the girls from their Townsville primary school in April 2014.
She allegedly moved them thousands of kilometres around the country in secret, travelling 1100kms to Camooweal on the Queensland Northern Territory border, then a further 1600 km to Kununurra in Western Australia.
From there, they were allegedly moved south to Gin Gin, about 75kms outside of Perth, and later taken to Grafton in northern New South Wales.
The court heard the father of the children, who had court-ordered custody when they were taken, did not hear from or see the girls in the entire four-year period they were missing.
The father was in court on Monday morning for the sentence.
The adjournment sought by the woman’s lawyers was opposed by the prosecutor, who argued the defendant was a “significant” flight risk and submitted her bail should be withdrawn.
He said there had been repeated delays and adjournments in the case and the court needed to consider the victims of the woman’s offending, including the children and their father.
Judge Paul Smith adjourned the woman’s sentence to Friday and allowed her to continue on bail.
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