A SCOTS mother has been ordered by a court to return with her baby
daughter to her estranged husband's home in France.
Distraught Mrs Sheena Perrin, 29, said yesterday: ''I am worried sick
about going back. But I have no option. I have a week left to obey the
order.''
Mrs Perrin left her husband Eric, 28, with their daughter Camille, now
two, in June last year -- after 13 months of marriage.
She returned to her parents' home, near Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, and
five months later won custody of the child at Dumfries Sheriff Court.
But her husband evoked the Hague Convention, and now the Court of
Session in Edinburgh has ordered her to return with the child to her
husband's home in the village of Myans, in Northern France.
The court was told he had agreed to move out of the house to allow Mrs
Perrin and the child ''to live there in peace''.
Mrs Perrin, who now has a council house in Kirkpatrick-Fleming,
Dumfriesshire, said yesterday: ''I'm so worried I just cry myself to
sleep at night. All I want is to bring up my little girl in Scotland.''
She added: ''Now I am faced with living in the small, close-knit
French village where I was so unhappy. I intend to fight in France for
full custody of Camille and bring her back to Scotland.''
Mrs Perrin, a university graduate, was teaching English in Cambrai
when she met Eric, one of her students, three years ago. Six months
later they were married.
She added: ''We got on all right at first but he began to make sexual
demands which I considered excessive. I decided to return to Scotland
with the baby.''
This year her husband petitioned the French Government under the Hague
Convention -- which makes provision for the prompt return of children
wrongfully removed from their country of residence. The French
authorities requested the Scottish Courts Administration to return the
child to France.
The petition was presented to the Court of Session in July under the
Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985 and was granted. The Judge ordered
Mrs Perrin to return the child to France but she appealed.
In their findings last week, the appeal Judges ruled against her and
altered the order to the effect that she had to accompany Camille.
Mrs Perrin said: ''I would like other parents to know about how the
Hague Convention can be used. Because I had been back in Scotland more
than a year, the Judges had to consider whether Camille was properly
settled here.''
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