One happy ending has come for a Portuguese father battling with British authorities to release his daughter from foster care.
The unnamed father wrestled his 11-year-old daughter back from the UK with the help of the Portuguese association for “lost children”, Associação Portuguesa de Crianças Desaparecidas (APCD).
The little girl had been in England since 2006, following her parents’ divorce, writes Correio da Manhã. She was taken into care after her mother, described as a drug addict, left her “for hours on her own in the library”.
After being placed with a foster family, the little girl’s Portuguese father started the battle for his daughter’s custody, which ended on Thursday (April 10) when the pair arrived in Lisbon airport from London.
“British social services came to Portugal to verify all the information given by us, and decided to release the child to the father,” APCD’s president Patrícia Cipriano told CM.
The little girl, originally from Baixa da Banheira, Moita, “is happy to be coming home to a family that adores her”, her delighted father told reporters.
It is the ending that another Portuguese couple, Carla and José Pedro, are hoping they can secure for their five children – taken into care in very different circumstances over a year ago (see story HERE).
A crucial meeting with Portuguese officials and British social services will be going ahead on the Pedros’ case next Thursday (April 17).
