“We’re out!”- the delighted two-word email arrived at the Resident’s offices mid-morning as little Ellie Kelly Silva finally embarked on the new life the Portuguese courts say she deserves.
Photographed here with step-father Philip Gannon, the pair were on the steps of the plane that was about to take them from the island of Madeira back home to Ireland.
It’s a photograph that hides six years of legal wrangles and a bitter custody battle that saw Ellie snatched from her mother by her Portuguese father, and kept undercover for seven agonising months.
But now, at long last, it looks like life will become a great deal easier.
Ellie is flying home to mother Candice and a jubilant family reunion.
Meantime, her father – Vilamoura businessman Filipe Silva – awaits trial for his daughter’s abduction.
By Natasha Donn
