The Children Kidnapped

Those early years of married life to Gerard were not all plain sailing.

My health was not good all the time: only two years after we married I had a hysterectomy, due to massive fibroids. I had been bleeding heavily at each period until I found I couldn’t go to work for the first two days of my period due to the heavy bleeding - I was forced to wear a baby nappy and stay at home and bleed. When I saw the gynaecologist he said to come back when I was using 4 packets of maternity Modess a period – I said I had gone far beyond that. The diagnosis was massive fibroids, and there was a massive area of menstrual tissue, there fore the heavy bleeding. The surgery preserved the ovaries, however shortly afterwards I began to experience the symptoms of menopause. I kept going to the family doctor with complaints and he suggested I have a holiday, or was my marriage okay? In other words it was psychological. I was devastated by this attitude, but one day I was standing in front of a full length mirror and remarked that I was starting to look like my mother: no pubic hair. It struck me that this was a menopausal symptom and then it clicked. I requested a referral tot the gynaecologist, who, on listening to my string of minor complaints, stopped me and said it was easy – I had gone into menopause. It was an uncommon but known side effect of the hysterectomy that the ovaries just stop working. I do know that my maternal grandmother went into menopause early so it may be a family thing. I started hormone replacement therapy and things went back to normal.

My general health was variable. The periods of mystery illness came and went at irregular intervals and there were times when I was free of the mystery illness for months at a time, then it would come back. I can remember periods were I merely existed, going from one day to the next hoping I would eventually feel better. I spent days with a migraine, only finding relief with an injection of pethidine, a derivative of morphine. This was difficult to get as it was addictive, and I was reluctant to ask for it. Consequently I would not ask for it unless the migraine would not resolve itself. I usually needed an injection about once every two months. I took lots of aspirin and paracetamol. I also suffered constantly from swollen glands. In the early nineties I found that this was due to mononucleosis (glandular fever) which I had contracted whilst I was pregnant with my son in Lebanon. I carried a positive antibody reaction to this disease for at least 15 years that I know of.


The relationship with Michel was not all good in this period either. At one point, I objected to the sleeping arrangements he had for Elizabeth – she did not have a separate bed at all and I felt she was too old to be sleeping with brother and father. Also in this period I suggested that the one day visit should be done with only one of the children – and Michel agreed, and on alternate weekends he took one child for the day, and on the other weekend he had both children for the weekend. I wanted to spend time with the children and as their principal carer I spent most of my time on domestic issues and didn’t get a chance to just be with them. I never understood why Michel gave in so easily over this, and I still don’t. He usually never gave ground on anything. Perhaps he had a guilty conscience from what he was contemplating.

During this period Michel asked me to attend a tribunal to allow him to get a Catholic divorce. I agreed to this and had a long interview with a nun at the Cathedral and he got his divorce.

Both Gerard and I had resigned from the Army Reserve when we married: we had found there was a conflict of interest in both of us attending, and we had children at home, so we decided to give it up.

For Christmas 1984 we decided to take the children to Hill End in the week prior to their scheduled visit to their father. Their behaviour was decidedly unusual, restless and fidgety. The trip was not entirely successful despite the lovely surroundings of Hill End. It rained a lot, and the children’s behaviour made the camping trip difficult to maintain. We came home early because of the rain.

Unusually, when he collected the children, Michel asked for details about their allergies. I was surprised and wondered if this meant a new parent was emerging I was very right and very wrong.

Michel took the children to Lebanon the next day, away from my reach.

He took them to a motel overnight, and the next day he flew out to Lebanon. At the end of the week the children were due to return however they did not, and alarm bells began to ring in my mind. After a few more days, I went around to where Michel lived to find a stonewalling landlady who gave nothing away. I also tried to get information out of his closest friends, to no avail. I am sure they knew where he had gone, but they had been told to tell me nothing I am sure.

After a week I went to the police and was told I could do nothing. It was suggested I see my Member of Parliament, which I did. He was able to pull stings to get the Dept of Foreign Affairs to access the passport computers which told us that they had left the country on Lebanese passports. Using the Lebanese passports was obviously to circumvent the passport watch system under which the children’s names had been placed all those years ago when he first threatened to take them away from me. He had obviously had passports made up in their names when he had travelled to Lebanon six months prior to this incident. I recalled that he had mentioned he was getting photos made up of the children prior to that visit to Lebanon, so he must have had the passports made up then.

I felt much better knowing that the children were safe and that they were with their father. At least nothing really bad had happened to them. I did not feel happy about them being in Lebanon. There was a war in progress and even though Aamchite was in a safe enough area, they could get hurt. I had little chance of getting them back legally, I knew -I knew that the laws of custody in Lebanon gave automatic custody to the father once the child was 6 years old. The only way I could get them back was to either kidnap them back, or persuade Michel to give them up. Regardless of what I was able to do, I wanted to see the children, talk to them and find out what had happened, why, how the children themselves felt about it and what I could do, given the circumstances.

As Michel did not have custody of the children in Australia, he had committed the crime of kidnapping them. I had a warrant for his arrest made out, which did me no good as he was not there to answer it. I then set out to go to Lebanon which was harder than it sounded. I tried several times to see someone at the Lebanese Embassy, to no avail. Finally I turned on the waterworks and cried which got me visas for myself and Gerard.

Lebanon was still in the grip of a civil war in June 1985 and we had to get there via Cyprus, the same way we had come out of there as refugees in 1976. I cashed in the $10,000 I had in an investment bond to finance the trip.

We went to Lebanon without telling anyone apart from family that we were going. We arrived in Jounieh to find the place swarming with soldiers. It was obvious that any attempt to rekidnap the children might fail, and a more direct approach would be needed. We found a hotel in Jbail, and took a taxi to Aamchite, where we had lived and where Michel had built several flats over the original cottage.

I found my ex brother in law at home. The children were playing with their cousins in the back of the ground floor. When my son saw me he started to cry. It had been six months since they had seen me and I wondered what Michel had been telling them. I knew he was a master of the brainwash, so it obviously was not good, judging from my son’s reaction to me. I asked him where his father was but he didn’t know. I went upstairs and spoke to Farouk.

Michel had brought the children to him without warning. The children were staying with Farouk’s family. Michel did not even live with them! I felt outraged. He kidnapped his children only to dump them on his sister in law! Someone must have rang Michel because he came in after a while, roaring to me that I must go. An argument ensued, this in the company a several of the locals, including Michel’s uncle and aunt, who had heard I was there. His behaviour was brutish and cruel, shouting at me to leave. He was finally encouraged calm down and his relatives finally got him to agree that since I was there, I could see the children. It was the intervention of the Zogaibs, Michel’s mother’s relatives, that enabled me to see and keep contact with the children in that time.

I was allowed to take the children out of school a few times in the ten days I was there. I tried very hard to work on the children to try and get them to come back with me, but the resistance was high, and Michel was implacable. I was not in the position to kidnap them back, with the soldiers swarming everywhere. I was also the topic of much conversation as everyone knew who I was and why I was there. I was also accompanied by a large red haired man who stood out.

Those ten days were bitter sweet. Elizabeth was conscious of the gravity of the situation. It was suggested by Michel, and others, that I stay in Lebanon, to be with the children. To do that would be condoning the kidnapping and my position would always be a subservient one, as a supplicant to Michel, like being married to him. It would not have been good for the children to see their mother in such a situation. I decided to return to Australia. I recalled a Jesuit saying: "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," which is based on a quotation by Francis Xavier. Through this I hoped that the children would seek me out, if I had been a good enough mother. I was able to get the promise from Michel that he would allow letters. This I got through the intercession of the Zogaibs, who had always been on my side.

It must have been difficult for Michel to have the Zogaibs in my corner. They talked of me as if I was a saint, and recalled my exploits often, my daughter told me later. I think also that I had my revenge on Michel every day: he only had to look at my children to see me in their faces.

I went home to Australia with the hope that the children would grow up and seek me out. In the meantime I would have to survive without them. I was devastated. It was worse than death in a way. I had lost my children to a Lebanese and they were being reared in Lebanon by a person unrelated to them, an aunt by marriage. Would I even like them in ten years time?

In the years following, if I was asked if I had children, I would answer “no”. It was easier than explaining what had happened. I was raw with grief for a long time. I did not think that telling the whole world was going to make it any easier for me, so I did not broadcast the event. At around the same time another mother suffered the same fate - it was broadcast on the news, and the toing and froing that occurred was also broadcast. I don't believe the mother fared any better by having the world know what was happening to her and her children. It must have been hard for her to meet people and have them commiserate about the children. I don't think I could have coped with that reminder all the time.

Letters from the children were rare, and came via friends who had travelled to Lebanon. I would get a phone call and would then have to visit someone I didn’t know, sit and visit in Arabic and be polite, in order to get a letter, usually written by Elizabeth. Sometimes the letter was accompanied by photos. Getting a letter meant they were okay, but opened up the wound for me. My life had seemly filled the hole left by the children, but I knew that all I had done was to cover it up. It was always there. I knew I would never recover from this.

Indeed the kidnapping affected the whole family. My parents had looked after the children before and after school, and had taken Elizabeth to dancing and were very involved in their lives. My brother Barney was a regular weekend babysitter. Gerard was their stepfather and a mutual respect and fondness had grown up between him and the children. My brother threatened to kneecap Michel if he could. It was a nice thought.

Even writing this was upsetting, despite the face that the children have been back with me for more than fifteen years. I still cannot face the thought of meeting Michel again. I have come to terms with the kidnapping but have never got over the loss of my children during those ten years. it was worse then death. I think any mother would agree with me.

The first photo is one of the children sent to me from Lebanon. The portraits were given me by Michel, I think they were taken at the time he had passport photos taken. The photo of me with the children was taken at the hotel in Jbail, when I was in Lebanon visiting the children.