Sisters dragged home kicking, screaming

CONFRONTING scenes erupted as the Italian-born sisters at the centre of a bitter international custody dispute were sent back to Italy.

news

CONFRONTING scenes erupted as the Italian-born sisters at the centre of a bitter international custody dispute were escorted - in one case, kicking and screaming - to Brisbane airport and put on a plane to Italy.

The youngest of the four girls broke away from federal police and pleaded to stay with her mother after a warrant was served late last night to take them to airport.

She kicked and shouted for her mother when she was bodily carried to a waiting car by a federal policeman. The other three girls also cried, before being driven away. The mother chased the car on foot and broke down.

Later, the girls called to their mother at Brisbane airport where they were escorted by police and an Italian embassy official who was to accompany them on the flight to Italy, where they will be returned to their father’s care.

At the boarding gate, one of the girls wailed "Let me go, I want my mum, I want my mum".

The mother watched on telling them, "I love you".

"I'm just praying, I'm just praying, I don't know what to think. I'm terrified right now," she said.

The sisters, who hold dual Italian-Australian citizenship, travelled to Australia with their mother in 2010 for a one-month holiday and have remained here since.

During the two years the girls have lived in Australia, the mother has waged a legal battle to keep them in her native country.

The Family Court ultimately ruled yesterday that the children be immediately returned to their father.

The sisters flew out of Brisbane about 3.30am today.

Brisbane Family Court Justice Colin Forrest ruled that the girls were wrongfully kept in Australia and there were insufficient exceptional circumstances to allow the girls, aged nine to 15, to remain here.

However he refused to make the order to return the children to Italy until their father gave an undertaking to withdraw any complaint against their mother.

The father did so, via telephone through his lawyer, from his home in Italy.

The girls' mother sobbed as Justice Forrest spent more than one hour reading out his reasons for dismissing her application to discharge his previous order for the girls' return.

The sisters attracted international media attention in May when they went into hiding to avoid a 2011 Family Court order to return to Italy, where they are the subject of a custody dispute.