A BRITISH woman snatched her daughter twice from her Turkish Cypriot husband but her child ended up blaming her for not getting to know her father and his family and cut all contact with her mother for nearly five years.
In her story, which was published in the British tabloid Daily Mail online yesterday, Georgina Han recounts how she took her daughter Jayhan, who was born in 1986, from the north when she was just a baby and left for the UK but the girl’s father later managed to snatch her back when she was four years old and kept her for two years until 1990 when Georgina decided to take matters into her own hands.
“My heart was racing so fast I thought it was going to burst out of my chest as I stole up the garden path, ready to abduct my daughter Jayhan from her father’s home in Turkish Cyprus.
It had been two long years since he’d snatched her from my home in Essex, and, despite going through all the official channels, I’d got nowhere. My only chance was to forcibly take her back.
I was sick with nerves and hardly able to breathe as I stealthily approached the kitchen door. Outside sat a sympathetic British Army officer in a Jeep with the engine running, ready to make a quick getaway once I’d got her,” said Georgina. Jahan was then six.
Georgina was 20 when she met barber Hussein Han, 28, while travelling in the north of Cyprus in 1984.
“ … I quickly became pregnant, but within a matter of months I knew our relationship was a mistake,” she said.
Georgina knew she had to leave Cyprus but Hussein would not let her so one day she “sneaked out” with her daughter in her arms and left for the UK.
“Despite everything, I knew that it was important for Jayhan to know her family, and agreed to stay in contact with Hussein via relatives he had in Wembley,” Georgina said.
Before Christmas 1990 she allowed Jayhan’s granddad, who was visiting the UK to take her out for the day.
“That was the last time I’d see my little girl for two years,” Georgina said.
The next day Hussein phoned her and said she would never see her daughter again. Despite her efforts there was nothing legal she could do.
But in January 1992 she received a call from a British army officer stationed in Cyprus who offered to help get Jayhan back.
After snatching Jayhan, they raced back to the Green Line checkpoint, desperate to get there before the alarm was raised.
“In the car, I pulled off Jayhan’s headscarf and dark clothes, swapping them for bright western ones to try to fool the border guards,” Georgina said. “I already had a passport for Jayhan so she could travel back to Britain.”
Back home, Georgina thought her troubles were over but in the years that followed the trauma of the incident pushed them apart.
“I snatched Jayhan only out of love and concern for her, but she ended up blaming me for her not knowing her father and his family,” Georgina said.
As time passed Jayhan started asking questions about her father but Georgina was reluctant to explain, saying she would tell her everything when she was 18.
But Jayhan secretly tracked down her father and visited him in Cyprus when she was 17.
“I was incredibly upset and our relationship started to disintegrate,” Georgina said.
She “blamed me for the fact that when she’d met her father he had seemed a distant figure to her,” she added.
When Jayhan was 18 she left home and cut all direct contact with her mother. “The only news I had of her was through a very old family friend,” Georgina said. “It was awful”.
But two months ago Jayhan called Georgina and told her she was proud of “my courage for not giving up on getting her back.” “As time passed I slowly started to understand the extreme position mum had been in,” said Jayhan, now 23.
“I realised that both my parents had acted out of love for me and both of them had wanted me in their life.”
“I have seen my dad twice since, one time in Cyprus and another when he came over here to visit. I have found it hard to form a bond with him,” Jayhan said. But she hopes that over time their relationship will grow.
