MP urges foreign secretary to help with abduction case

Gilmour fights for family

Tiverton and Minehead’s Liberal Democrat MP Rachel Gilmour has urged the foreign secretary David Lammy to help with a case of international child abduction in her constituency.

“I can’t go into details because it is a very sensitive matter, but we’re working hard in Parliament to get the Foreign Office to press on this matter to reunite a loving family,” Ms Gilmour said.

“We will await the promised meeting with consular staff before commenting on what the Government may do on this, but we are hoping that we will be able to enforce a pre-existing international legal judgement, and make progress on this deeply saddening case.”

In 2013, the then Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said almost two children a day were being abducted to a foreign country by their parents.

In 2003/04 the FCO was involved in 272 new parental child abduction and international custody cases. In 2012/13 that figure rose to 580, the second highest figure ever recorded at that time.

In a debate last year in Parliament about international child abduction, reference was made to there being more than 1,200 cases in 2021 involving child abduction that were considered by the UK courts.