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Judge criticises parents after children went missing on Pakistan flight alone | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
A High Court judge has criticised parents whose children went missing after being sent on an unaccompanied flight to Pakistan. | |
Alyssa Din, 15, and her sisters Safia, five, and Amani, now four, flew to Karachi via Islamabad in October after leaving their home in Preston. | |
Mr Justice Hayden described the girls' ordeal as "brutal" and said it was to stop them being taken into care. | |
Their father apologised and said he hoped the children would soon return. | |
Ilyas Din and their mother Mazeley Din were jailed last year for contempt of court after failing to provide information about the children's whereabouts. | |
The judge lifted a ban on their identities and their children at a hearing on Monday. | |
'Threatened' | |
Mr Din told the Family Division of the High Court in London the couple had panicked, adding: "We are not bad people. We just made a mistake. People do make mistakes. | |
"We are loving parents but we were afraid because we were threatened by social workers." | |
He said he had contacted a relative in Pakistan and hoped that the three children would soon return to England | |
Mrs Din asked the court: "What am I supposed to do? | |
"I am trying to get my children back but nobody is helping me get my children back. You have just put me in prison." | |
Mr Din, who is in his late 40s, was given a 12-month term and Mrs Din, who is in her 30s, received a six-month sentence, following the hearing in Liverpool in December. | |
The couple have other children and have been married for 17 years. | |
'Mother subjugated' | |
Mr Justice Hayden decided initially decided not to reveal the family's identities because he thought publicity might harm any children still in England. | |
He lifted the ban in the hope it might lead to them being found. | |
The judge said the "mother's will had been subjugated by the father". | |
He said people had twice called the police because there were "so concerned" about the "noise of violence" coming from the Din home. | |
Mr Din had previously been acquitted of causing grievous bodily harm to Mrs Din after she told jurors there had been a "terrible accident". | |
Lancashire County Council's solicitor told the judge the local authority was "simply" inquiring about the children's welfare and had no plans to remove the children "prior to the parents' actions". | |
'Alien continent' | 'Alien continent' |
Following the December hearing, Mr Justice Hayden published a written ruling which said: "There has been much discussion about how those children came to be put on that plane in that alarming and, in my view, quite brutal manner. | |
"The burden for looking after the two younger ones appears to have been placed on the 15-year-old. | "The burden for looking after the two younger ones appears to have been placed on the 15-year-old. |
"The children's final destination was Karachi. That took them by Islamabad. One cannot begin to imagine the anxiety that that trip must have caused to those children. | "The children's final destination was Karachi. That took them by Islamabad. One cannot begin to imagine the anxiety that that trip must have caused to those children. |
"It is not difficult for any adult member of the public to understand why, when a family feels the local authority to be circling in, they might panic and run away together to evade the consequences of intervention. I do not for a moment condone that, of course. But I do understand it. | "It is not difficult for any adult member of the public to understand why, when a family feels the local authority to be circling in, they might panic and run away together to evade the consequences of intervention. I do not for a moment condone that, of course. But I do understand it. |
"What is far more difficult to understand is the parents who would put a three-year-old on a plane to an alien continent in this way. They must both have become very removed from their children's most basic emotional needs." | "What is far more difficult to understand is the parents who would put a three-year-old on a plane to an alien continent in this way. They must both have become very removed from their children's most basic emotional needs." |
Heathrow Airport would not comment on the case but said parents could book unaccompanied children on an airline and their staff would escort them through security. |
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