In the Telemark district court, a woman is charged with abducting her children, after she took the children illegally in Norway in March 2022, and flew them on a private plane to Iceland. Since then, the children have lived there. While the trial is ongoing in the Telemark district court, the father, to whom the court has granted daily care for the children, is in Iceland to find the children.
The mother has partially pleaded guilty, but believes that the abduction is not serious because, according to her, the children were not doing well with their father.
On Tuesday, the woman had to answer why she is now not contributing to the children’s return to Norway, as the court in both Norway and Iceland has decided.
Also read the first case from the trial: The children traveled with false passports: – I am very worried
also read
Abducted own children in private plane: Now the mother is imprisoned in Norway
– I listen to them and I do what my children say. They have their own opinions, said the mother in the Telemark district court.
– They are not packages of minced meat. I can’t just send them back, said the mother.
– Never spoke ill of father
Today, she does not want to say where the children live, but says that they are in contact with their siblings and friends, and keep up to date with schoolwork through digital contact with the school.
The mother has been accused of manipulating the children against the father. Twice she has abducted the children. Both times, after the abductions, reports have been made against the father. These allegations have been investigated and dismissed as non-criminal.
– I have never spoken badly about him to the girls. That report did not come from me but from a psychologist who had spoken to the child, said the mother.
Read more about this case here: Lost all the children in two child abductions: – Completely surreal and Abducted children: – I have no regrets
– A tyrant
Then she told about several violent incidents to which the father had exposed the children.
– He was a psychological tyrant in the marriage. He ruled with shouts and screams, and he has also done that to the children.
Nevertheless, the woman has offered the father of the child help to establish himself in Iceland, so that both parents can live near the children.
– It is only five years that he can live in Iceland, then the children are grown up and he can do what he wants, but he doesn’t want to. He does not even respond to our offers about it, the mother told the court.
– Putting their lives first
In the district court, the mother also spent a lot of time telling about the reasons for the two abductions she has now made of the children. After the marriage broke up, she moved away from her husband and children to Iceland. After she moved, she sued to get full custody of all the children so they could move to her in Iceland. She lost that case and in 2018 the Agder Court of Appeal ruled that the father should have all the children living with him.
The mother believes that the father is unable to take care of the children’s health, while at the same time he is violent. According to her, the children would live with her, and she believes that the Norwegian authorities should also listen to what the children want.
– I put their lives and health before everything else. I can’t just watch them suffer. If no one else does it, then I have to do it, said the mother in court.
The mother told the court that she has brought a case before an Icelandic court in the hope that Iceland will stop the demand for the return of the children.
– A man in a serious life crisis
After the mother’s explanation, the police investigator told him about the case. She said, among other things, that it only took an hour from the time Father reported the abduction, and he did so quite quickly, until the private plane took off from Torp Airport.
A psychologist who has helped the father during the 20 months the abduction has been going on said that she is surprised that he is still on his feet. During these months, several operations to bring the children home have been unsuccessful. At the same time, there have been new accusations against him from Iceland, which he has needed help to process.
– I have met a man who is very affected. He has been in a serious life crisis that has been going on for 20 months, she said.
The woman also said that the municipality has an aid system ready for the day the children return to Norway and will process what they have experienced, and reconnect with their father.
Another expert on trauma, who testified in court, said that children are shaped by how their parents handle conflict.
She also said that children from relationships with a high level of conflict like to support the narrative of the parent with whom the child is, in order to bond more with the person who cares for them. This can cause greater problems for children over time.
– The boys were not themselves
At the end of the court day, the mother of the abducted children’s best friends testified. She talked about being a good dad, and that she was never surprised by anything in the care of her sons’ best friends.
– He is steady and clever and always stands up for the boys and at charity events, she said.
She said that there was a whole neighborhood that missed the boys, and she had not heard of them being bullied, as the mother has claimed.
After the abduction, the boys spoke several times with the boys in Iceland.
– Then mother followed very much in the background. She wouldn’t let them talk to me alone. I had to ask if they could go outside, so they would get away from mother. Then I asked how they really felt, the neighbor told me. She said that the boys were not like themselves when she spoke to them.
– These were not the three boys I knew.
After the phone call, the neighbor had received a text message from his mother. There she had said that she should not ask certain questions, and that she should not greet father from the boys either.
Eventually the mother stopped the conversations between the boys and the neighbour. It is now approximately eight months since she spoke to the abducted boys.
– I am completely deleted. I can’t look her up on Facebook either, said the woman.
2023-12-19 21:28:10
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