You were brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting – from your child, to bitter old resentments and heartbreaks -and you were strong enough to let them live, without adding to the chaos and without damaging your son. It was the best thing you could have ever done.

If one turns out to be wrong, the honourable thing to do is say so – so nothing wrong there I’m afraid. Only the stupid are pigheaded.

Dak li qed tippostja mhux bizzejjed, Norman! Semmejt biss lit-tifel, meta l-gist tal-kritika hu indirizzat lejn missieru. Il-pass li jmiss ghandu jkun li turi l-faccata l-ohra tar-rappurtagg moqziez li sar meta Super Busuttil tpogga bhala vittma. Hemm nibda niehdok bis-serjeta’.

It is of some comfort to know that Larisa can now enter this battlefield with some armour finally. For a father to first deny basic rights to the mother of his child, and then to attempt to strip that mother bare of any armour to present her wounded and near-dead to the court, is despicable.

I would hope the mother gets full custody and the father is given visitation rights within an adequate abuse-sensitive framework. No nonsense like being at the father’s mercy for the issuance of a passport, etc.

I think the abduction part came about when she was stopped in Poland attempting to cross into Belarus… That’s where the child snatch squad (aka CARI – lead by someone who was arrested whilst attempting to abduct a child in Singapore) probably abducted the child from the mother. Recovery of an abducted child is actually down to law enforcement officers with a court order and not a bunch of wannbe FBI manhunters.

Up until then, it looked pretty much like a custody dispute between two parents (the Maltese gave the father custody, the Czech authorities did the same for the mother).

The next step in the story, I guess, is why did she attempt to abscond to Russia as that would have resulted in the Czech authorities alerting Interpol and issue a restraint order to recover the child and arrest the mother.