Persistence helps reunite mother and son

A mother has been reunited with her abducted son thanks to the help of determined Canadian police officers.

In January 2020, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) received a report of a missing child. The child's father didn't drop him off at school as planned, and the mother was soon on the phone with police reporting the disappearance.

The family moved to Canada in 2017 but Marie and her husband were soon estranged after his abuse escalated. The two informally shared custody of their four-year-old son Sam and when Marie began a new job, the father agreed to take Sam to school. A few months into that arrangement, the father fled Canada with Sam.

Toronto Police Detective Cst. Jason Ferreira, the lead investigator on the case, soon confirmed through the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority that they had left the country and were likely already in France, where they both held citizenship.

Investigating internationally

"Right away, jurisdiction becomes an issue and almost immediately we reached out for assistance," says Ferreira, who often investigates sexual assaults, domestic violence and cases involving youth at the TPS 51 Division in downtown Toronto.

After speaking with Marie, Ferreira got in touch with the RCMP's National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR), which has experience navigating the complexities of international child abduction cases.

"There was a very strong partnership established right from the get go," says RCMP Cst. Yelena Handy, an investigator with the NCMPUR. "[Ferreira] was reaching out for different strategies and to see what we could do to help."

Investigators with the RCMP's NCMPUR were instrumental in bringing specialized knowledge, international police contacts and investigative experience to the complex multi-national case.

"When you've never dealt with international parental abduction, it can be hard to know where to start," says Handy. "Our centre is here 24-7. If a police agency needs urgent help because they were just notified that a spouse took a child and they're currently on a plane, they can call us and we can help."

Ferreira says NCMPUR's experience was invaluable throughout the investigation.

"They have contacts I wouldn't have and reached agencies I wouldn't necessarily be able to get in touch with," says Ferreira. "We worked hand in hand."

Ups and downs

Canadian police, with the help of Interpol and French police, located Sam and his father in France. But when Marie went to retrieve her son with an Ontario court order in March 2020, jurisdictional and procedural roadblocks halted her efforts.

Police and Marie next turned to the Central Authority for The Hague Convention in Ontario. The convention treaty, signed by more than 80 countries, provides parents with a civil mechanism to bring their abducted children home.

Through the Central Authority Marie secured another court order instructing Sam's return, but her hopes were dashed when she learned the father didn't board the flight to Canada with Sam and instead went into hiding.

"It was like a roller-coaster," says Handy. "It was going well sometimes and then something would happen and we'd be moving backwards."

Handy and Ferreira worked with Interpol to place Interpol notices on the father and Sam to prevent them from leaving France. The case then stalled until Marie learned six months later that they were in Cameroon. Police suspect they were smuggled into the country.

A breakthrough finally happened in June 2021, when Marie went to Cameroon and met with police officials. Two months later, Marie finally held her now six-year-old son Sam again in an emotional reunion, more than a year and a half after he was abducted.

"It's the news any investigator hopes to hear. That the child has been recovered and back with the rightful parent," says Ferreira. "I'll be honest, sometimes along the way I was losing confidence that would happen in this case, but credit to the mother who never gave up."

Throughout the case, police were supported by the Canadian Border Services Agency, Immigration and Citizenship Canada, Global Affairs Canada, RCMP Liaison Officers, French National Police, the French Embassy in Yaounde and the Cameroonian National Gendarmerie.

Home at last

In September, Marie and Sam were finally on their way back to Canada.

Handy, who arranged their travel through NCMPUR's reunification program, tracked the flight from her computer in Ottawa watching as they approached Canada.

"We were just so anxious to have them return," says Handy. "Everybody was working so hard and tirelessly and there was a lot of emotion in those 18 months."

Ferreira finally met Marie at the airport upon her arrival with Sam marking the end of the case he was dedicated to for more than a year and a half.

A Canada-wide warrant for the father still stands. He is subject to parental abduction charges if he ever returns to Canada.