Finding Helen

UK man Hamish Norton* came to New Zealand to find his daughter, Helen, who he says was abducted.

He found her, but he is yet to establish regular access— or find justice. Hamish presents his story for Father & Child.
*Hamish and Helen are not their real names

This is the story of a girl who tried to save herself. A girl who left warnings left right and centre. A girl who was totally ignored and a father who tried to tell the authorities what the girl was saying.

In January of 2005 it seemed that I had lost that daughter. It took a while longer for her to actually be taken away, but as far as I was concerned I had lost her then.

My contact had been curtailed to 6 hrs per week. This was because I had complained bitterly in the Family Court that Helen was talking about touching my ex-wife’s new partner’s “willy” (as she called it). I thought I was complaining of matters that any reasonable body would complain of. When they would not listen to me I knew it was lost and my heart was heavy. I had other people in my life at the time but none so important as Helen.

However, on one of the last visits Helen made to my house in England she saved herself. Helen came around that day and for a four year old, I could tell she was pretty fired up by something. She came in through the patio door where she would sometimes sit and watch squirrels on a rainy day. She got up onto a chair and then onto the table. I watched bemused but there was something going on here, I knew that much.

On the wall in the back room of my house I have a very large Europe centred world map. Helen stood on the table and scanned the map with her eyes. Eventually she saw a shape that she recognised and insisted on pointing it out to me. “We’re going there daddy”. She said.

Uh! was as much as I could manage.

“We’re going there daddy” with more emphasis. Uh!

“And now I’ve told you”. She said it and I believed. Helen got down from the table and did some colouring or played her harmonica or something. I was lost in thought. At the beginning of an odyssey. On the verge of the struggle that would define my life at least for the next few years, possibly for ever.

Helen and I always had a totally sublime time together. There were no tantrums, not ever. Not a cross word between us. Alright sometimes I would do something Helen didn’t like and vice-versa. So what’s the big deal in that, we are both people. The fact that we love each other like hell shouldn’t get in the way of a bit of antagonism, after all that’s what makes us get up in the morning.

She would say to me “Stop that” and I would. Or I would say to her Hey! and she would. One day she asked what a dead bird was. I was unsure how to explain what any sort of dead thing was, so we cycled around until we found one. OOOhhh said Helen intrigued. I for one didn’t understand what she saw in it. But she talked about this sodding dead bird for ages afterwards. Young people can be a bit odd at times. But then I remember that I collect Dr Who memorabilia, I guess that she just likes dead birds.

A few weeks later I got up to the morning that I would appear in the UK appeal court. Now I was trying to make someone, anyone believe what Helen had told me. That she was in fact going to be whisked off to New Zealand. Of course they didn’t think that Helen would lie, but it was plausible I would. Once again I wasn’t believed and it’s as simple as that. My daughter was going to live in Germany with her German mother and extended family. How the hell she knew to point out New Zealand I guess I will never know. Why she saved herself I will never know. The fact that she tried brings comfort in even the darkest corner.

Helen’s mother and I met years earlier while we both studied for a degree. When Helen was born we lived in Switzerland. Although the Court would later describe our relationship as “One characterised by violence” this was not right and not fair for any of us. Certainly we had had some pretty high ups and some pretty low downs.

Elements of violence occurred only after round after round of failed talks. Even then there was no hitting, The violence was grand-gesture and agonised leaps. I made a stupid mistake one morning by grappling with Helen’s mum. There was no sense to it and I was regretful. I was prosecuted and later we reconciled.

Early on in our Swiss trip Helen’s mum had become involved with the fringes of a fundamentalist religious sect. It was one of these organisations that preaches damnation for all eternity should you not drink from their 25% of your wages cup. Over time I had hoped that they would just go away.

By the time Helen was supposedly going to live in Germany I was emotionally screwed-up, mainly as a result of the horrible Family Court proceedings. So it came as no shock to me when neither Helen or her mum showed-up in Germany. In October 2005 I travelled to Germany to find out what was going on there. In the house that Helen’s mum was at pains to prove in the Family Court she would be living, was a drunk man who knew nothing of the whole thing.

That week I discovered a mention on a website that proved Helen’s mum, at least, was now in New Zealand. At first I thought they were in Dunedin and so in November 05 I contacted a lawyer there. He soon discovered that they were actually in Christchurch. Something that had been said to me years earlier, while we were still living in Switzerland then made sense. A common friend of Ursula and mine said to me, while we were still living in Zurich. “You’ll know if she (Helen’s mum) is involved with that church (the sect) because they will move to Christchurch, New Zealand. It is one of their places”. The same friend also told me that they like to organise themselves in locations with a lot of CH’s in the name. I suppose that way they can somehow compel their victim into believing that they were somehow meant to be in that place.

Knowing that Ursula was in Christchurch raised my level of concern to bursting.

Just before Christmas 2005 something happened to me that was rather weird. I guess like the world map scenario I’ll never get a satisfactory answer. I was in a supermarket in Lancaster, my home town in UK a couple of days before Christmas 2005. My head was down and I was struggling to accept that Helen had been abducted to New Zealand. I did not know what to do. In a provisions aisle I, sort of, saw something. A flash. But no, it couldn’t be could it? Anyway they were gone.

That woman and that child, that child who is bothering me. At the closed end of the aisle I saw them again. Now the woman was sort of standing over the child, it looked like she might have been protecting her or hiding her. Then I saw the shoes. A leather pair, made up of a number of different coloured leathers. I am sure there are plenty of shoes similar to these, similarly made of bits of coloured leather. But hang on, these were most definitely Helen’s shoes. In which case that little girl should be Helen but Helen is in New Zealand. While trying to deal with the paradox that child was pulled from my sight once again. Saddened, I gave up again.

Gave up, that was hardly the truth, I felt given up, like a toxic cause. Lost and unhappy I continued my miserable Christmas shop, reveries into the advantage of one mince-pie over another. Then I saw the girl again. Now she was being marched or dragged towards the exit of the shop. Then I heard her. This is Helen, that was Helen.

That was her cry. Like any parent I detected her as I could from thousands of others. Still… Helen is supposed to be in New Zealand. Not here, now. In a frozen moment, at vicious irony, against the freezers I lost again the girl who tried to save herself. She was being dragged towards the exit of the supermarket and I stood frozen to the spot. I will hit the grave regretting that I didn’t jump. When I wonder why, I remember my total emasculation in the family court process.

I remembered then my pledge to find and get even with the District Judge one day. Low sun, Stetson and only my boots between him and infinity. But first, hurt some of the things he most loves. Perhaps his train set. Perhaps I can burn out eye holes in his rubber dolly. Replace them with the smouldering bud of contempt he left me with.

Here was Helen, my beloved, my protectee and I couldn’t reach out to protect.

In January 2006 I attempted to begin a Hague Convention process. At every turn this was stymied because the UK court had allowed Helen to be removed from their jurisdiction. As for the German jurisdiction, because Helen was never “gemeldet” (ie registered) I don’t think the German authorities wanted to know. In any case I didn’t really want Helen to spend her life in Germany. I knew, for a fact, that my beloved daughter had been abducted by people who I am sure are deeply involved with a quite sinister religious sect. Seemingly I could do nothing about it.

In Spring 2006 it became apparent that Helen’s mum was travelling to Australia, I suppose leaving Helen behind. I asked the Christchurch family Court to grant an order preventing Helen’s removal from New Zealand which was successful. After contacting Child Youth and Family I booked a ticket to come to NZ to sort this mess out.

I arrived mid-August and have been here ever since. I immediately went to see CYF who apparently do not see child abduction as an issue. Which is odd when considering that it was Christchurch CYF who had suggested that I had better come out to NZ in the first place.

Shortly after arriving I was surprised to learn that my ex-wife had managed to get a protection order made against me. I was even more surprised to learn that this protection order was based on an incident from 2002 and on the fact that I had come to NZ to kidnap my own daughter who had, in effect, been kidnapped once already.

From the moment Helen had been taken away letters had arrived, purportedly from Germany. I was even more surprised that they continued even once I knew that they were in New Zealand.

Imagine my surprise when they still continued to come, still purportedly from Germany, some after I was in NZ as well.

Phone contact was almost never, I had had none save for one in July 2005 when Helen said “I am in Ingerrr-lannnd”, then the phone went dead.

I did receive drawings with the letters. One apparently from Helen (August 2005) that was very obviously not her hand.

At the moment I am waiting to get things sorted out through the Family Court and hoping that justice is on the horizon. For me to get this close, fair access and regular visits would seem reasonable for a girl who went to some effort to save herself.

Hopefully the New Zealand authorities will listen and consider at least two sides of our story.

Next: Parenting: Terrible Twos