KIERAN DALL - 8 yo (2010) - Guilford (E of New Haven) CT

Chris Dall knew something was wrong when his 8-year-old son’s cell phone went straight to voice mail.
Dall bought the cell phone for his son, Kieran, who lived in Florida with his mother — Dall’s ex-wife, Johanna Bayley.
When Dall couldn’t reach Kieran that afternoon in September, he tried Bayley’s personal cell phone. Then he called her work cell phone. Then he dialed her office line.
All went to voice mail.
Confused and hoping they would eventually pick up, he continued calling for the next few days. But when he called Bayley’s parents in Massachusetts, he got the news he’d been dreading.
Bayley had taken Kieran to South Africa. Dall says it’s a case of child abduction.
“We had shared parental custody, so she wouldn’t be able take him to another state, let alone another country, without a written court order from me,” Dall said last week. “We’ve got a loving, supportive family that’s (standing behind us). We’re all heartbroken.”
Bayley has refused to bring Kieran back, forcing Dall to hire attorneys in Florida and South Africa. Last week, Dall put an international agency on alert.
Florida courts recognize Bayley may have committed a third-degree felony by removing Kieran from the state, but Bayley’s attorney contends this is not a case of kidnapping or abduction.
A ruling on whether Kieran should return to the United States is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday in South Africa.
Dall’s current wife, Chelse, says the situation is like “something out of a Lifetime movie.”
Dall and Bayley married in 1999 and had Kieran in 2001. A short time later they moved from Maine to Florida, but the marriage unraveled, according to Dall, because Bayley began traveling and working long hours.
Bayley decided they should relocate to Massachusetts near her parents, who did not return a phone message for this story.
Dall obliged, applying to a physician’s assistant program at Springfield College, but Bayley changed her mind, advising Dall to go north and then visit her and Kieran in Florida on his school breaks, Dall said. They divorced in 2005.
Dall visited Kieran every few months until he graduated in May 2009. That summer, Dall married Chelse and the two began working with an attorney to be granted more time with Kieran.
Bayley allowed Kieran to visit the Dalls for Christmas. Then in February, Bayley told Dall she fell in love with a wealthy businessman named Rami Barnes and wanted to move to South Africa with Kieran and marry Barnes.
“She said, ‘I could offer him a life you could never offer him. This man is very wealthy, so he’ll have experiences beyond anything he could ever have in America,’” Dall said.
Bayley filed a petition for the relocation of Kieran so they could move to Johannesburg, and Dall filed motions fighting her request.
Then Kieran spent the summer in Guilford.
“He went to vacation Bible school, he made friends, he was involved in playing soccer at Jacob’s Beach on Monday nights, he went to horse camp,” Chelse Dall said. “He made reference to living with us. He said, ‘I’ve lived with mom for four years; could I live with you the next four years?’”
Kieran returned to Florida in August, and Dall traveled there in September for mediation with Bayley regarding her request to move to South Africa. He said he agreed to Bayley and Kieran moving there for a six-month trial basis as long as he could see him whenever he wanted, but the pair came to an impasse.
Litigation continued, but on Sept. 24, Bayley took Kieran to South Africa. Dall believes they are living with Barnes.
The Dalls say it was a premeditated abduction, since Bayley quit her job at a Vero Beach resort, stopped paying bills in May on her home, which is now in foreclosure, sold and rented some furniture to a friend and applied in July for Kieran to be enrolled in a South African school.
At an emergency hearing Oct. 6 in Florida, Bayley acknowledged by phone that she had no permission from Dall to take Kieran out of the country, saying that they were only “on holiday,” according to court transcripts. The court ordered her back to the United States within the next few days.
Bayley never showed up.
At a second emergency hearing on Oct. 19, Bayley was found to be in civil contempt of court for not returning. If she returns to the United States, court orders say Kieran will live in Guilford with Dall temporarily while litigation continues. Bayley would be restricted to phone contact with Kieran during that time.
Bayley could not be reached for comment, but Craig Rappel, a Florida attorney representing Bayley, said he will appeal the contempt order because “the court, in our position, did not develop an appropriate record with respect to the issues and what was in the best interest of the child.”
He added that Dall failed to pay child support for a “long period of time” and that when Bayley first told Dall she planned to move, he gave permission. Rappel says Dall then reneged.
“Had he not given permission, there would be no way she could leave the country with a minor child. Her intentions were given early on, he knew about it, and if he was really against it he could have done whatever he needed to do and he didn’t,” Rappel said.
The Dalls have filed their case with the National Crime Information Center, which will prompt Interpol, the international police organization, to flag Kieran’s passport. If Kieran’s passport is scanned, he will be detained.
Dall said he hasn’t pressed charges because in similar cases with criminal charges abducted children haven’t been returned.
Case law suggests South African courts are concerned about parents being convicted if they are told to return the child, said associate attorney Kevin Rollin, who is helping attorney Brad Rossway represent the Dalls from Florida.
However, Bayley has possibly committed a felony of removing a minor from the state or concealing a minor contrary to a state agency or court order, Rollin said.
“Sometimes the parties can agree to not press criminal charges if the abducting parent voluntarily complies with the law,” Rollin said. “No criminal charges have been filed, nor do we intend to elevate the case to criminal proceedings. Mr. Dall’s primary concern is the safe return of his son to the U.S., not the incarceration of Kieran’s mother.”
Rossway and Rollin have coordinated with the Dalls’ attorney in South Africa, Beverley Clark, to bring an urgent application to the nation’s high court that says the Florida court’s orders should be held as valid in South Africa.
The Dalls are also working with the U. S. State Department Office of Children’s Issues and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to Rollin.
Rappel maintains that his client did not kidnap Kieran.
“This is not an abduction. Obviously, this is an issue for the courts to deal with appropriately,” he said.
Dall says the situation has been financially taxing, so much so that he and his wife owe tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees.
Dall and his wife fear Bayley and Barnes will continue appealing the case, causing more financial hardship. Asked what they would do if Kieran never comes back, both Dall and his wife went quiet, shaking their heads.
Giving up is not an option they want to consider.
“Everybody’s referred to this as a David and Goliath case,” Dall said. “Every time we go in the courtroom we win, but he’s still not here.”

South Africa has ratified the Hague Convention so they have to return the child to the country they were taken from for the decision. It's shame Kieran's father didn't bother to pay child support though. It doesn't look good on his resume as far as the final decision. Anyway, in the meantime he needs to contact the Central Authority in South Africa who governs the Hague Convention.

The Hague Convention of the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, 1996 (Act 72 of 1996)


South Africa ratified the Convention in 1996 and the Act came into operation on 1 October 1997. The Convention's main object is to enforce rights of custody over a child(ren) who has been wrongfully removed to or kept in a foreign country in breach of those rights and to secure the prompt return of the child(ren) to South Africa.The role of the Central Authority

• A contracting state is bound to set up an administrative body known as the “Central Authority”, which has the duty of tracing the child and taking steps to secure the child’s return.
• In South Africa the Chief Family Advocate is designated as Central Authority.
• The Central Authority assists in both “outgoing” cases (when a child has been wrongfully taken from South Africa to a foreign country or retained in a foreign country, as well as “incoming” cases (when a child has been wrongfully brought to, or retained in South Africa )
• A party may submit an application for the return of a child, or access to a child to the Central Authority.

Court custody hearing postponed in case involving former Vero Beach woman


INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — South African courts postponed a hearing in an international child custody battle between a mother who moved there from Vero Beach and the father in Connecticut, according to attorneys involved in the case.
On Oct. 19 Indian River Circuit Judge Robert Pegg found the mother, Johanna Bayley, in contempt of court because she didn't attend a custody hearing and the judge awarded custody to the father, Chris Dall, of Connecticut, according to court records.
She now is living in Johannesburg with her 8-year-old son Kieran Dall, said her attorney Craig Rappel.
The father has hired a attorney in South Africa is intervene there. But a court hearing that was scheduled for Tuesday was postponed until early February, according to attorneys in the case. The delay was because of court scheduling conflicts, an attorney said.
Meanwhile, Bayley's attorney is appealing Pegg's civil court ruling to Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal.
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/dec/10/court-custody-hearing-postponed-in-case-former/

I appreciate the buzz surrounding my battle for my son's return. It is easy to post opinions from afar.
The flippant way you refer to the ease of the Hague is pure ignorance.
He was taken against court order, plain and simple, and I have never missed a payment for those of you stuck on that miss representation in the news article.

kierandad wrote:I appreciate the buzz surrounding my battle for my son's return. It is easy to post opinions from afar.
The flippant way you refer to the ease of the Hague is pure ignorance.
He was taken against court order, plain and simple, and I have never missed a payment for those of you stuck on that miss representation in the news article.

There was nothing 'flippant' at all in my post with advice about the Hague Convention. I am well aware it's not a quick fix but I'm amazed you bother to come on with your attitude when I was only trying to help.
As to some articles claiming you hadn't paid child support, if it's true you never missed a payment then it will be very easy for you to prove it and get everyone to print a retraction won't it?

kiwimom wrote:

kierandad wrote:I appreciate the buzz surrounding my battle for my son's return. It is easy to post opinions from afar.
The flippant way you refer to the ease of the Hague is pure ignorance.
He was taken against court order, plain and simple, and I have never missed a payment for those of you stuck on that miss representation in the news article.

There was nothing 'flippant' at all in my post with advice about the Hague Convention. I am well aware it's not a quick fix but I'm amazed you bother to come on with your attitude when I was only trying to help.
As to some articles claiming you hadn't paid child support, if it's true you never missed a payment then it will be very easy for you to prove it and get everyone to print a retraction won't it?

Wondered how long it would be before you responded to this fella'.