Ella wins her fight to stay

Waylon Johnston

A 10-year-old girl’s wish to stay with her father in Malta was granted by a judge yesterday but the legal battle between her parents is far from over after the Attorney General filed an appeal to have her sent back to the UK.

Ella Bridge convinced 57-year-old Mr Justice Joseph Azzopardi that she was happy with her father, Richard, and had settled down in Malta.

In an emotional scene moments after judgement was handed down, Mr Bridge’s lawyers – including retired Judge Phillip Sciberras – broke down in tears of joy.

Mr Bridge immediately telephoned his wife, Julia, and asked to speak to Ella to tell her the good news.

Mr Justice Azzopardi warned lawyer Aron Mifsud Bonnici about using the press to put pressure on the adjudicator, “because it is not the newspapers that decide cases”, adding that doing so might get the opposite result he wanted.

In the judgement, Ella’s biological mother, Niki Lee, was shown in a bad light when the judge described her “track record” with her children as “unfortunately not good”.

“In her past, it appears to the court that she hardly took care of any of her children (from another father)”, the judge said.

She had previously conceded custody of her first two children to her former husband and rarely saw them.

“Why is she insisting on having custody of Ella?” he asked.

Mr Justice Azzopardi said he felt that when leaving the UK, Mr Bridge was aware that he was taking advantage of the situation and attempt to cut off his former wife from their daughter.

He also knew that it was the UK courts that should have decided the matter. He would only have himself to blame if criminal charges should be pressed against him there, the judge said.

“There is no doubt that, from a purely legal point of view, Mr Bridge had put himself and his daughter in a difficult situation” but there “is little doubt that, in normal circumstances, any court would have given custody to Mr Bridge”, the judge said.

The case goes back to 2010 when Mr Bridge and Ms Lee divorced in the UK. Mr Bridge came to Malta with his family intending to settle here but, within days of him leaving, Ms Lee started legal proceedings to have Ella returned.

On October 20, 2010, a UK court issued an order of wrongful removal of the child. The Director of Social Welfare Standards started proceedings against Mr Bridge in Malta in terms of the International Convention on International Child Abduction.

The law provided that decisions concerning children had to be taken by the court of the country where the child would normally live, not by the court of the country to which the abducting parent had taken them. In May 2011, the Family Court upheld the director’s request and ordered Ella to be removed to the UK.

Mr Bridge appealed the judgement but his appeal was filed two days late and was dismissed. He then resorted to the Constitutional Court, claiming a breach of the girl’s fundamental rights on grounds that she had not been heard.