Grandparents As Parents

Published Date: 01 March 2010
A MOTHER who abducted her two daughters and flew them out of the country after losing a custody bid has been jailed for 10 months.

Trudy Crofts, 30, of Blackpool, jetted out to Spain and then travelled by ferry to Morocco when she discovered police were on her trail.

She later left the girls alone with her new husband's family in Morocco where they were said to have been physically and emotionally abused, Preston Crown Court heard today.

The youngsters' ordeal only ended when a neighbour intervened and the girls were taken to the British Embassy in Morocco.

Sentencing Crofts, Judge Anthony Russell QC said her daughters, Carene, 13, and Shelby, 11, "must have been terrified by the experience".

Both girls arrived back in the UK last December following a three-month stay in Morocco and are now back in the care of their grandmother.

Crofts flew out with them from Liverpool Airport to Alicante on August 17 after a day earlier telling her mother, Rita Astbury, that she had come to collect them for the weekend to go swimming.

The children had been in the care of their grandmother since 2002 with the agreement of Crofts after she lost her accommodation in a hostel for the homeless and could not keep a roof over their heads.

However, Crofts had made a number of custody bids in recent years which were all refused.

Ms Astbury raised the alarm when she discovered her daughter's address was empty and investigations led to the issuing of a European arrest warrant. Kevin Slack, prosecuting, said the defendant had married a Moroccan man in Spain earlier that summer.

She fled by ferry to Morocco with the children once she became aware the police were involved, he said.

She was returned a month later to the UK in October and then appeared at the High Court where the children were ordered to be repatriated.

Crofts was given a 12-month jail sentence for contempt of court when she failed to comply or co-operate with the order.

Julie Taylor, defending, said her client had left the children in Morocco as she attempted to resolve the matter with the courts.

Miss Taylor added: "Whatever else she has done she clearly loves the children and had no desire to expose them to any danger."

Crofts, of Peter Street, pleaded guilty to two counts of child abduction at an earlier hearing.

Judge Russell said it was a "blatant breach" of her visitation rights.

He said: "It seems to me that the court should recognise there should be a different sentence for the specific criminal offence you committed. Abducting your children from the legal guardian is a serious criminal offence."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lanc … 543986.stm