Mother appeals for help to find daughter abducted from UK to Jamaica | UK news

A mother living in the United Kingdom, whose five-year-old daughter was kidnapped and taken to Jamaica, is appealing for help to find her missing child. Tau Rodriguez-Fairplay is believed to be hiding in the town of Black River, which was devastated by Hurricane Melissa in October.

Tau’s mother, Samar Rodriguez, who teaches human rights and gender at the London School of Economics, said Tau had been missing since early February.

Under the joint custody agreement, Tau split his time between Rodriguez and his ex-wife, Athena Belle-Fairplay. But in February this year, Belle-Fairplay failed to drop the child off at the London train station where she had agreed to meet Rodriguez.

“At first I thought the trains were delayed, but it eventually became clear that Athena wasn’t going to bring Tau back,” said Rodriguez.

British authorities confirmed Belle-Fairplay, also known as Natalie Bartlett-Foster, flew to Jamaica with Tau on February 3 despite an order banning the child from being removed from the UK without court permission.

The abduction triggered cross-border cooperation between courts and institutions in the United Kingdom and Jamaica. Authorities believe Belle-Fairplay took Tau to the Jamaican parish of St Elizabeth, where he had family. Rodriguez traveled to Jamaica in April and hired a private investigator, but was unable to confirm Tau’s location.

Through tears, Rodriguez said fears for Tau’s safety have grown since Hurricane Melissa caused catastrophic damage in Black River, considered the hurricane’s “ground zero.” Belle-Fairplay’s family home in town was severely damaged in the storm, Rodriguez said.

Claiming that the authorities in England and Jamaica did not take immediate action, Rodriguez said, “I don’t know whether my daughter is dead or alive. I just want to know that she is safe.”

“Wondering where and how your child is is a pain no one should ever experience. From the moment Tau was born, I poured all my energy, love, and intention into raising him. Now this cruel and harmful thing has happened to him… and the process of finding him and taking him home has been nothing short of dehumanizing,” said Rodriguez.

As signatories Hague convention on child abductionBoth the United Kingdom and Jamaica must take the necessary steps to facilitate Tau’s rapid return to the United Kingdom.

The Central Authority of Jamaica, the government body responsible for facilitating the country’s treaty obligations, said it was fulfilling its duties under the agreement by engaging government ministries, departments and agencies, schools and private organisations.

But Rodriguez said “vague corporate messaging” added to the horrific ordeal. “The signatories of the Hague convention have an obligation to locate children who have been abducted and brought into their jurisdiction, but I was told that they could only ‘locate’ my daughter if I provided the location.

“Then, they insisted that I was actively searching [for Tau]they wouldn’t do anything else; that the attempt to locate him and communicate the decision of his own high court was now a completed ‘courtesy’! “The end result was ten months with no agency in Jamaica to definitively address whether my missing daughter was safe,” said Rodriguez.

Nastassia Robinson, a lawyer in Jamaica who is supporting Rodriguez, said the case was stalled by the JCA’s delay and authorities’ insistence that it was Rodriquez’s responsibility to locate his ex-wives and daughters.

“It is unfortunate that there has been no attention or urgency given to this matter because a child is missing, but the Central Authority of Jamaica has repeatedly said that the child is not missing because for some reason the child is with his mother. I do not know how this conclusion can be reached when we have no evidence of the child’s safety and welfare,” they said.

JCA said in a statement that although Belle-Fairplay did not have a physical address, it was able to apply to the Jamaican high court for an order extraditing Tau to the UK by emailing documents. He also managed to obtain a cease and desist order to prevent Belle-Fairplay from taking Tau to another country.

The JCA said the case was “significantly hampered by the lack of a suitable address to locate the child”. He added that he learned that Rodriguez had assigned a private investigator and police officers to find Tau, which “forced the offending parent further into hiding.”

The statement said it would be possible to launch a national missing children alert in Jamaica, but added that the alert was not designed to locate children who are with their parents, so “Tau would not be considered missing” under the system.

Sarah Inchley, Rodriguez’s lawyer in the UK, said that although Jamaica’s high court found that Tau was wrongly removed from the UK by Belle-Fairplay in violation of Rodriguez’s custody rights and was “abducted under the Hague convention”, there were gaps in processes in Jamaica that made it difficult to locate and repatriate Tau.

“The key issue that arises is that the order can only be enforced if Tau is found. And Athena has taken determined steps to hide Tau in order to avoid this court process, to disobey the Supreme Court of Jamaica order, and to not comply with what was required of her,” he said.

He added that Tau would suffer serious emotional harm from being suddenly removed from a loving parent, his life in London and everything that was familiar to him.

A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office told the Guardian: “We have referred this case to the Jamaican authorities and will continue to use every available opportunity to do so.”

“The UK government takes international parental child abduction extremely seriously and our staff are ready to support those affected,” the spokesperson said.

Anyone with information on Tau’s location is asked to write to @FindTauJA on Instagram, findtauja@gmail.com or the British high commission in Kingston.