{"id":3804,"date":"2025-12-15T12:44:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T12:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=3804"},"modified":"2025-12-15T12:44:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T12:44:54","slug":"mother-appeals-for-help-to-find-daughter-abducted-from-uk-to-jamaica-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=3804","title":{"rendered":"Mother appeals for help to find daughter abducted from UK to Jamaica | UK news"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A UK-based mother whose five-year old daughter was abducted and taken to Jamaica is appealing for help to locate the missing child. Tau Rodriguez-Fairplay is believed to have been hidden in the town of Black River, which was devastated by Hurricane Melissa in October.<\/p>\n

Her mother, Samar Rodriguez, a London School of Economics lecturer in human rights and gender, said Tau had been missing since early February.<\/p>\n

Under a joint custody arrangement, Tau was sharing her time between Rodriguez and their former spouse, Athena Belle-Fairplay. But in February this year, Belle-Fairplay failed to drop off the child at a London train station where she had agreed to meet Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Tau has been missing from the UK since February.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAt first I thought that trains were delayed, but eventually it became clear that Athena was not bringing back Tau,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

British authorities confirmed that Belle-Fairplay, also known as Natalie Bartlett-Foster, flew to Jamaica with Tau on 3 February, despite an order forbidding the child\u2019s removal from the UK without court permission.<\/p>\n

The abduction triggered a cross-border collaboration between courts and institutions in the UK and Jamaica. Authorities believe that Belle-Fairplay took Tau to the Jamaican parish of St Elizabeth, where she has family. Rodriguez travelled to Jamaica in April and hired a private investigator, but was unable to confirm Tau\u2019s location.<\/p>\n

In tears, Rodriguez said that fears for Tau\u2019s safety had multiplied since Hurricane Melissa caused catastrophic damage<\/a> to Black River, which was considered the hurricane\u2019s \u201cground zero\u201d. Belle-Fairplay\u2019s family home in the town was said to have been severely damaged in the storm, Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if my daughter is dead or alive. I just want to know she is safe,\u201d said Rodriguez, who claimed that authorities in the UK and Jamaica had failed to act with urgency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWondering where and how your child is, is a pain that no one should experience. Since the moment Tau was born, I have put all of my energy, love and intention into raising her. Now, this cruel and harmful thing has happened to her \u2026 and the process of finding her and getting her home has been nothing short of dehumanising,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

As signatories of the Hague convention for child abduction<\/a>, the UK and Jamaica are both obliged to take steps to facilitate Tau\u2019s prompt return to the UK.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Damaged buildings after the passage of Hurricane Melissa in Black River.<\/span> Photograph: Ricardo Makyn\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Jamaica Central Authority, the government body responsible for facilitating the country\u2019s treaty obligations, said it had fulfilled its duties under the convention, engaging government ministries, departments and agencies, and schools and private entities.<\/p>\n

But Rodriguez said \u201cunclear institutional messages\u201d had compounded a horrifying ordeal. \u201cHague convention signatories have an obligation to locate children who have been abducted and brought into their jurisdiction \u2013 but I\u2019ve been told they can only \u2018locate\u2019 my daughter once I provide a location.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, they insisted that because I actively searched [for Tau], they would do nothing more; that any attempt to locate her and serve the order from their own supreme court was a \u2018courtesy\u2019 that\u2019s now complete! The end result has been ten months without any institution in Jamaica definitively addressing whether my missing daughter is safe,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

Nastassia Robinson, a lawyer in Jamaica who is supporting Rodriguez, said the case has been hampered by delays by the JCA and the authority\u2019s insistence that it was Rodriquez\u2019s responsibility to locate their ex-spouse and daughter.<\/p>\n

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\"Athena<\/picture><\/div>
<\/svg><\/span>Athena Belle-Fairplay, Rodriguez\u2019s former spouse<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that this matter hasn\u2019t been given the attention and urgency because a child is missing, but for some reason the Central Authority of Jamaica has repeatedly said the child isn\u2019t missing because they\u2019re with their mother. I don\u2019t know how that conclusion can be made when we have no evidence of the child\u2019s safety and well-being,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the JCA said that despite not having a physical address for Belle-Fairplay, it was able to approach the Jamaica supreme court for an order to return Tau to the UK by serving the documents by email. It was also able to obtain a stop order to prevent Belle-Fairplay from taking Tau to another country.<\/p>\n

The JCA said the case was \u201cheavily hampered by the absence of a proper address to locate the child\u201d. It added that it had learned that Rodriguez had enlisted a private investigator and police officers to locate Tau, which it was advised \u201chad forced the wrongdoing parent deeper into hiding\u201d.<\/p>\n

The statement said it would be possible to initiate a national missing children alert in Jamaica, but added that the alert was not designed to locate children who were with a parent, so, under the system, \u201cTau would not be deemed missing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez\u2019s UK lawyer, Sarah Inchley, said that although the Jamaica supreme court had found that Tau was wrongly removed from the UK by Belle-Fairplay, in breach of Rodriguez\u2019s custody rights, and \u201cabducted within the meaning of the Hague convention\u201d, there were gaps in the processes in Jamaica that made it difficult to locate and repatriate Tau.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere the significant problem has arisen is that the order is only enforceable if Tau can be found. And Athena has taken determined steps to conceal Tau to avoid this court process, to not obey the Jamaican Supreme Court order and to not comply with what is asked of her,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She added that Tau would be experiencing significant emotional harm by having been suddenly removed from a loving parent and from her life in London and everything that was familiar to her.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson from the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office told the Guardian they had <\/strong>\u201craised this case with the Jamaican authorities, and we will continue to use every appropriate opportunity to do so\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UK government takes international parental child abduction extremely seriously, and our staff stand ready to support those affected,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Anyone with information regarding Tau\u2019s location is asked to write to @FindTauJA on Instagram, findtauja@gmail.com, or to the British high commission in Kingston.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Mother #appeals #find #daughter #abducted #Jamaica #news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A UK-based mother whose five-y… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}