Australian child abduction experts CARI in demand overseas

WHEN an Aussie documentary crew showed up in Laos, locals didn’t realise they were led by a guy with a “particular set of skills” and plans to snatch a child.

WHEN an Australian documentary crew turned up in a remote part of Laos with a boat and Jeep with blacked-out windows, no one suspected a thing.

The team of ex-military operatives were posing undercover on a mission to snatch four-year-old Moregan from his family home and return him to his father Gordon Carr in the UK.

“We had boats ready on the river and basically we were waiting inside vans with tinted windows,” said Adam Whittington, an ex-Australian Army member and policeman.

Mr Whittington is now managing director of Child Abduction Recovery International (CARI), a controversial business that works on behalf of parents to “recover” children abducted overseas by one of their parents.

“Everyone was chasing us and it was like a scene from a Hollywood movie, [but] it was done perfectly safe, perfectly well … Our number one priority is the child’s safety.”

What sounds like a scene from Hollywood’s Taken is another day in the life of Mr Whittington and his gang of 13 ex-army, CIA and government operatives.

With jobs from Europe to the Middle East, Africa and Asia that cost upwards of $20,000 each, the full-time staff use their military planning, observation and tactical skills to plot the return of children in cases that are becoming more common due to a rise in cross-cultural relationships and ease of travel internationally.

Father Gordon approaches his son with a toy. Picture: CARI/YouTube.

The company has been the subject of a recent documentary Abducted, centring on the case of Cypriot father Craig Michael, who employed Mr Whittington to snatch back his daughter Crystal after her mother Marta took her to Poland. The dramatic night-time raid showed the two men surprising the family at home and grabbing the crying two-year-old before speeding off in a waiting car.

Despite the tension, Mr Whittington is adamant his solution is the best one for desperate parents. He said CARI conduct extensive background checks to ensure there were no accusations of domestic or sexual abuse and only acted where court orders were in place.

“We base our stuff on what the courts have decided and that’s the fairest thing we can do,” he said.

“Our business is what is the best interest for the child. It’s got nothing to do with the client or the abductor; it’s really about the innocent children and this is what people don’t understand.”

It’s controversial and dangerous work that saw Mr Whittington sentenced to 16 weeks’ jail in Singapore along with one of his clients and another Australian man, after he pleaded guilty to entering the country illegally and criminal assault.

But it’s a risk Mr Whittington is willing to take as he says most people don’t realise how children can be used as “weapons” in a war between their parents.

“They’re kept inside, they don’t go to school. If they’re sick they don’t get taken to doctors or hospitals because they can be traced through the authorities.”

“Some of them are in horrendous conditions. This is why we do this job. Not because of the mums and dads, but [because] these children don’t choose to be taken away and locked up in an apartment like maximum security, and this is how some of them are living.”

‘A very particular set of skills.’ CARI chief executive officer Adam Whittington is like a real-life Byran Mills from Taken. Picture: CARI

Others aren’t so sure about their methods. The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth office said it was crucial all parties used the right legal channels when it came to returning children.

Reunite International chief executive officer Alison Shalaby, who works to support families where children have been abducted, said while she hadn’t worked with the group, her organisation encourages parents to try a mediation-based approach, which is becoming more popular.

“It’s not something we recommend parents do because in many instances it can be illegal. It can put the parent at risk, it can put the child at risk,” she said.

She said many people didn’t realise that a court order didn’t necessarily make it legal to go into other countries.

“You can get a return order from your own country but that is not a valid order in the country the child is in … That is one of the misunderstandings parents are maybe told,” she said.

“People tend to think it’s about parental rights, but it’s not about the rights of one parent over the other parent. It’s the rights of the child to have a meaningful relationship with both parents.”

Gordon Carr, whose son Moregan was returned to him in the dramatic Laos case, said he had no regrets whatsoever about his decision to snatch back his son.

“It was a decision I had to make. I tried to do it amicably with the family time and time again but it just wasn’t happening” he said.

“Being without his father would have traumatised him for the rest of his life.”

However clinical psychologist Heather Irvine-Rundle says a dramatic “recovery” mission such as the one in Laos above could also leave a child traumatised.

She told news.com.au that a child being snatched from his home by a group of strangers then placed on boat was not a normal for a child and therefore could have serious psychological effects.

“Even if there are no physical dangers, that is actually quite traumatic for a child,” she said.

Ms Irvine-Rundle said this “gung-ho” approach to remove a child from a “dangerous or unlawful environment” failed to take into account the attachment a child might have to one of their parents.

“Just because its illegal to take a child from Australia to another country doesn’t mean the child doesn’t have a secure attachment with that parent,” she said.

Ms Irvine-Rundle said research had shown that when a child was removed from a primary attachment figure at a young age it could have long-term psychological effects.

“The child can manage it if they are going from one primary attachment figure to potentially a secondary attachment figure but in a lot of these cases, where they have already tried to go through the legal process, it’s been a long time between the child being with the primary attachment figure, normally the mother, and the secondary attachment figure, which is the father. So they are not moving from a safe attachment to another they are moving to a stranger,” she said.

“Now, what happens when that is done to any child, as you can imagine, is that they often get very distressed and very lost and very confused about their world. And there is a sense of abandonment that goes along with that that can end up impacting that person for the rest of their life.

“The trauma of trying to adjust to a whole lot of strangers who aren’t your primary attachment figure, or your safe person, can produce all sorts of depression, anxiety personality disorders that the person has to cope with for the rest of their lives.”

Ms Irvine-Rundle said she understood if the child needed to be removed from an environment that was clearly unsafe, but if it was safe she questioned the need for such drastic action.

“I understand the other parent feels alienated and distressed but I am not sure going in and having this recovery mission is actually in the best interests of the child,” she said.

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