As runaway mother Jennifer Jones faces courts
over her actions, her emails reveal the anguish of a woman 'left with nothing'
Anguish: This time
last week Jennifer Jones was lying low in the Welsh countryside, painfully
aware that time was running out
She had been given a
deadline to hand four of her five children back into the care of her ex-husband
in Spain, but chose instead to pack their bags in the middle of the night and
go on the run. It was a desperate, ultimately futile act from a cornered woman,
though she was simply doing, she insists, ‘what any mother would do’.
Since then, over the
course of three tumultuous days, she has been arrested, accused of ‘abducting’
her children, threatened with jail and ordered before a High Court judge.
Yesterday, Ms Jones, a 45-year-old English language teacher, was back in Wales
– alone. Three of her children – Sara,
16, Eva, nine, and David, eight – are in Spain; while the other two – Jessica,
14, and Tomas, 12 – remain in Britain, temporarily in care. Jessica apparently
vowed to make a huge fuss, kicking and screaming on the plane, if she was
forced to return.
It is unclear what, if
anything, has been decided by the court. Certainly a positive resolution, as
far as Ms Jones is concerned, seems impossibly distant, if not hopeless. On
Friday, she was asked how she was bearing up. ‘I haven’t even been able to cry
properly yet,’ she said outside court. ‘Though I seem to be able to cry in my
dreams.’ She added: ‘There was no
protection for my children so a mother has to do her duty. A mother should love
her children, I certainly love mine, I would certainly never do anything to
harm them.’ Her words were issued in a half-whisper and anguish was writ large
across her face.
While she insisted she
would remain strong – ‘because that’s what a mother has to be’ – she appeared
to be one more delivery of bad tidings away from breaking. Last week her
‘tug-of-love’ case, complete with letters from her children begging not to be
made to live with their Spanish father, made headlines across Europe. But
little emerged beyond cursory facts about its background.
Family: Jennifer Jones' ex husband Tomas Palacin
Cambra is pictured left with their children Tomas, Sarah, Eva, Jessica and
David Palacin Jones
The Mail on Sunday can
reveal that Ms Jones charted the story behind her rancorous custody battle in a
series of soul-baring emails to a reporter in which, frustrated to the point of
despair by criss-crossing claims and counter-claims, she says she was left with
little choice but to defy the law. They detail how her children’s father, an
army officer based in Majorca, was granted custody of the children in the
Spanish courts based on what she alleges was a ‘seriously flawed’ psychological
report.
Elsewhere in the
emails, she claims that he was abusive towards her and her children, and
accuses him of ‘brainwashing’ and ‘manipulating’ them, of ‘poisoning their
minds’ against her and even banning them from speaking English. ‘I am a mother
desperate to help my children and protect them,’ she says in one. ‘I have
fought for three years in Spain and cannot get justice.’ Needless to say the
emails, written last month, offer a one-sided account of what is a complex
saga. They are muddled in part and sometimes incomplete. What emerges, though,
is a sharp sense of her desolation. And underpinning all her words is a
determination never to stop fighting for her children.
For his part, their
father, Lieutenant Colonel Tomas Palacin Cambra, 52, vehemently denies her
claims and says she ‘persuaded’ the children to make false allegations about
his treatment of them. The emails recount how Ms Jones met her husband 16 years
ago when she was working in Tenerife, where he was then stationed. They married
and lived in Spain until 2008, when, she says, her ordeal began.
Jessica's note to the judge in her parents'
custody battle
Heart-felt: A letter sent by Jennifer Jones's
children to their mother
‘I wanted to get away
from my abusive marriage,’ she claimed. ‘My ex-husband is a controlling,
dominant man with an unstable character.’
That year they agreed
to separate and Ms Jones returned to Wales with her five children.
After 14
months, Ms Jones decided she wanted a divorce but was persuaded to go back to
Spain for a one-month ‘trial reconciliation’. She says: ‘He insisted he
deserved this and if it failed he would personally accompany me and the
children back to Wales where we would be free to continue our lives.’
It didn’t work out and
Ms Jones returned to Wales with her children, but without her husband, and
stayed, initially, in a women’s refuge.
But six weeks later
she was visited by police and later received a summons to appear at the High
Court in London, where she was ‘ordered back to Spain’. She says: ‘My children
were forced to leave their schools, family and friends and . . . board a plane to a
part of Spain [the city of Lleida in Catalonia] which we hardly knew. It was
one of the worst days of our lives.’
At the airport, Ms
Jones claims they were met by a bizarre reception committee. Her husband’s
relatives, she claims, ‘chanted aggressively with banners’ and caused a public
disturbance. ‘Luckily my children and I had the support of my sister and
brother-in-law who had travelled out with us.’ Ms Jones says her husband gave
the High Court an undertaking that she would be given €1,000 on arrival,
and afterwards €950 per month, though she claims this agreement was breached.
From left: David, Eva, Tomas, Sarah and Jessica
Palacin Jones
What happened over the
following ‘intolerable’ ten months is not made plain in the emails. But she
suggests her husband also broke what she claims were further undertakings not
to contact her, hassle her or induce ‘third parties to do so’. In any case,
according to Ms Jones, the situation deteriorated so badly that she decided to
officially report ‘the abuse my children and I had been subject to . . . both physical and
psychological’.
But she says she was
simply not believed by the Spanish courts. ‘The judge accused me of inventing
it to have my revenge. . . as in her opinion it was only on my forced
return that I had decided to report him [Mr Palacin Cambra] to the
police. ‘The psychologists stated that
in their opinion what I and our children had said in various interviews was
improbable and doubtful.’ Within weeks of arriving back in Spain, her allowance
was almost halved. ‘The provisions made for utility bills and school expenses
made in the UK High Court were taken away.’
She adds: ‘There are
many police reports on occurrences and deeply unpleasant and disturbing
incidents which happened over the ten months I was there.’ At times during the emails
the chronology appears confused, but they make clear that by 2010 a Spanish
court had ruled against her, granting full custody to her ex-husband.
'I love mammy': A hand-drawn card from Jessica
to her mother
‘The custody decision
was based on an odd psychology report which I believe to be seriously
flawed. I have proof to back up my claims. My lawyer was refused [permission]
to cross-examine the psychologists in court. I was not able to defend myself in
court. No police or social services reports were used which were in my favour.’
Instead, according to Ms Jones, the court relied heavily on ‘misleading’
psychologists’ reports from her ex-husband’s legal team.
Around this time her
ex-husband was posted to Majorca, where he still lives with the children in
army barracks, protected by a military checkpoint and CCTV in the centre of the
island’s capital, Palma. Ms Jones says she was left with nothing – ‘no custody
of my children, no division of assets and no means to live’.
She was faced with an
agonising decision about what to do next. ‘I returned [to Wales] distraught,
and I have tried to rebuild my life with the support of my family and friends
and make sense of a bizarre court case.’ At the same time she hasn’t stopped
fighting legal battles, first in London and now in Spain, where she is hoping,
once she has amassed sufficient funds, to appeal against the custody ruling.
Already, she has spent
more than £40,000 on legal costs. ‘I believe I did not receive a fair trial in
Spain. I have been told by the police in Spain that they were shocked by the
judges’ decision and had never seen a psychology report like that ever.’
Barristers
in London, she says, reached the same conclusion. ‘They said they would take my
case to Strasbourg under Human Rights, but advised me first I had to appeal in
Spain.’
Found: Jennifer Jones's children (back) Jessica
and Sara, (front) Tomas, Eva and David
Because of what she
says is her ex-husband’s unwillingness to co-operate, she has ‘no way of
reaching a compromise and there are no signs of a financial agreement’. She
added: ‘There isn’t any communication. He is . . . blocking contact between my children and me.
He is brainwashing them and damaging them emotionally. ‘He has stopped them from speaking in English.
My children are rapidly losing their English. Especially the youngest ones. ‘He
is making false accusations against me to the court. I have not been able to
travel to Spain to speak to the court and give them my evidence and side of the
story. ‘My ex has reported me to the police and accused me of not having
contact. I have all my mobile bills to prove otherwise.’
Under the terms of the
custody agreement her children stayed with her during school holidays, but she
claims her ex-husband tried to frustrate her access to them. On one occasion
she says she arranged through lawyers to collect her children in Majorca and
take them to Wales ‘to enjoy our half of the summer holidays’. But she claims
he took the children from school and caught a ferry to the mainland to
‘deliberately’ avoid her.
Mr Palacin Cambra’s
Spanish lawyer, Carolina Marin, said: ‘Mr Palacin refutes his ex-wife’s
allegations. He categorically denies ever mistreating his ex-wife or any of his
children physically or psychologically.’
Daily Mail UK
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