Editorial: Mother must pay heed to law

A 21-year-old solo mother has many things to contend with. But Bianca Ellen Ormsby is taking on more than most. She has brought her 1-year-old daughter, Sydney Thomas, back to New Zealand and now has the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation on her tail.

The case, revealed on these shores in last weekend's Herald on Sunday, is one of those messy child custody cases where it is difficult to see a happy ending.

Ormsby, according to court documents, left Los Angeles on March 16 with Sydney on a flight to Auckland. She and her former American partner, Adam Thomas, 21, had temporary joint legal custody of their daughter.

But on March 9, the documents say, Bianca Ormsby picked Sydney up from Adam Thomas' home in Farmington Hills, where he lived with his own parents. That was the last time he saw them. A criminal complaint was filed in a Detroit court, and Ormsby has been charged with international parental kidnapping.

A battle for custody of young Sydney had been brewing for a while and has involved the claim and counter-claim common with these sorts of cases.
American media reported that Ormsby took out a personal protection order against Thomas last year after claims of verbal and physical abuse, which she terminated two months later.

Thomas had concerns about her mental state, court documents claiming she was hospitalised last year after taking an excessive amount of pain medication.

No doubt Ormsby hopes her return to home territory will allow the New Zealand justice system to sort out the custody issue. That's what a post on internet site Facebook, if it is from Ormsby as it says, tries to clear up.

"Just to set the record straight. I am not wanted by the FBI. I am following the legal system in New Zealand, the police are aware of my situation and where I am and I have not been charged with kidnapping or abduction."

New Zealand police so far have not backed this view up, simply saying they are talking to the FBI to get more details on the case.

Ormsby will learn a lot about the legal system in the coming weeks. It would also be in her interest, and that of her daughter, if she studied some history.

The names Stephen Jelicich and Kay Skelton are two she should seek out.

Skelton spent time in jail after being held partly accountable for her father kidnapping her son and hiding him for months amidst a bitter custody battle. She took the law into her own hands and her access to her boy was curtailed because of it. Bankruptcy applications followed and it is doubtful the Skeltons will ever be the same.

Jelicich, too, fell on the wrong side of the law when he took baby Caitlin into hiding for nine days to stop her mother, Denise, taking her back to Wales after a stint in New Zealand in 2005. Caitlin was eventually returned to Wales for the courts there to sort out custody issues, and Jelicich virtually lost contact with his daughter in all the bitterness that ensued.

Sadly for Caitlin, her mother died of cancer last year and she was then put in the care of her half-sister.

It seems no matter which way the law goes in these types of cases, the child is the loser. Contact with one or other of the parents is virtually cut off.

Ormsby may only be 21, but she needs to think very clearly about what she hopes to achieve. Is her run home defensible, and is it really best for her daughter to lose contact with her father?

New Zealand is a signatory to an international agreement, the Hague Convention, that requires children be returned to their home country for custody matters to be heard before that country's courts.

Sydney Thomas was born in the US and a custody order, albeit temporary, exists there.

On the face of it, New Zealand judicial hands will be tied.

We are all free to argue over the merits of any law, that is our right in a democracy. But we can hardly seek to apply them only when we see fit.