Federal Police launch nationwide operation to dismantle network helping mums, kids hide
A SECRET underground network helping women abduct their children and hide after bitter Family Court disputes is being targeted by the Australian Federal Police. The network, which helps mothers and their kids to “disappear”, includes a number of prominent individuals.
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A SECRET underground network helping women abduct their children and hide after bitter Family Court disputes is being targeted by the Australian Federal Police.
The network which assists mothers and their kids “disappear” includes a number of prominent individuals, including a doctor, whose names have been provided to federal agents by a private detective who was once inside the secret circle.
Federal agents have launched a nationwide operation to dismantle the network following a series of high-profile cases.
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They involve the arrest of a 46-year-old mother caught in May hiding in the farming community outside Taree four years after snatching her twin girls from school in a custody fight.
The woman stayed under the radar moving to Perth, Grafton and Bega by not accessing her own bank account, giving her daughters new names and birth dates and using store gift cards to provide for them, a court was told.
The mother, who cannot be named, has told police two people including a prominent doctor helped her flee with her daughters in 2014 but police believe the number of those involved was much bigger.
Another mother, 45, was jailed for 18 months by the Federal Circuit Court in August after abducting her children and going on the run for two years allegedly using the same secret network of helpers.
She hid in a rural house surrounded by two-metre high shade cloth and barbed wire.
“The children were pale and sickly. They had not been allowed out,” a source said after they had been found.
The childrens’ grandmother, 74, who has cancer, was jailed for a minimum of three months because she kept the location of her daughter and grandchildren secret.
The networks are becoming more sophisticated and semi-formal as women access them through social media or “support groups” who reach out to them and provide accommodation as well as the use of other people’s bank accounts.
The AFP is called in to hunt for runaway parents, who are mostly mothers, after the women breach federal court orders to allow the fathers to share custody.
The AFP confirmed it had successfully found five children in three long-term cases of parental abduction in December 2017, May and August 2018 believed to have used the underground networks.
“As part of investigations into children who have been parentally abducted, the AFP, state and territory police may seek to identify those who might be in position to assist abducting parents to evade court orders,” an AFP spokesman said.
“Anyone who is found to be providing support to an abducting parent may themselves be committing a serious offence.”
Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston yesterday said more resources should go into protecting children than hunting them down.
She said some mothers acted out of desperation, left with no option if the children were being sexually or physically abused and were not being believed by the courts.
“It’s not something you are going to do to make your partners’ life miserable,” Ms Johnston said. “You know that if you are caught you are going to go to jail.
“You are going to go off the radar. There’s lots of moving around and no money.
“If you get sick you are stuffed, if your kids get sick you are stuffed.
“You have to home school them because they can’t go to school. You can’t talk to your family because you know the phones are tapped.”
Child recovery specialist Col Chapman said that to his knowledge there were a handful of people, well known in their communities, who controlled the networks.
“They are getting more prolific,” Mr Chapman said.
He said he had helped parents get their children back and it was heartwrenching to watch their nightmares.
“You hear the phrase, I’d die for my kids” and they would. It makes people go crazy,” Mr Chapman said.
The 46-year-old mother is on bail facing two charges of child stealing which each carry up to seven years’ jail.
The Family Court last month adjourned an application by the twins’ father, who currently has sole custody, for the woman to be punished for contempt of court until after her criminal trial.
A 44-year-old NSW woman was last month arrested in Bunbury, Western Australia, alleged to have abducted her five-year-old daughter who had been missing since May 2017.
It is not known whether the woman was allegedly helped by one of the networks.