5 Years and 6 Months too long...

 Monday, 9 January 2023 marks 5 years and 6 months since Nikki was abducted to Sofia, Bulgaria. Today I am 100% alienated from Nikki, have no contact or receive any news of his wellbeing. Parental Alienation is child abuse (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U54NF_mAck).

In January, 2019 my diary tells me that I have just received the judgement of the appeal hearing. Nikki's mother now (as she had done towards the end in SA) made an interesting choice of legal representation, and used legal council who were better known for dealing with criminal matters than family matters (https://www.novinite.com/articles/129203/Lawyer+to+Appeal+Verdict+in+Bulgaria%27s+Double+Murder+Case). The strategy served her but not Nikki well.

If you remember from my previous postings, I had won The Hague matter which ordered Nikki's return to South Africa where the Parenting Plan ordered by the High Court of South Africa should be implemented. Below are factors which the Appeal Court in Bulgaria cited for overturning The Hague matter's decision.

- you do not have at your disposal a family environment suited to the child’s upbringing

- in respect of you, "there are actions threatening the child’s health"

- the absence of a criminal conviction against you does not “deprive you of the possibility of being rough with the child”

- the child itself avoids contact with you and holds on to its mother’s hand

- the Appeal court reads this as the seeking of support by the child in its mother (???)

- the removal of the child from the mother and its family environment in Bulgaria would affect the child highly negatively

- the return of the child to SA would be a shock to such a young child and contains a risk to its future development (referring to alleged Bulgarian Social Services findings)

- the child has lived for an “exceedingly short time” in SA

- the mother and child lived in a different town to the one you lived in

- currently, the child is in an extremely "calm and suitable” environment, despite its removal, and is developing correctly, given which the transfer to SA would be a radical change with negative consequences

- if returned to SA, the child would be separated from the mother, which would affect its development.