Hebrides  News                                       newsdesk@hebrides.biz

Bookmark and Share
Hebrides News - www.hebrides-news.com
wp0eb02052.gif
wp93c3ba3f.png

Runaway Lewis school girl reunited with mother    7/2/11

 

 

 

Molly Campbell, the runaway Lewis school girl at the centre of an international tug-of-love custody battle has been reunited with the mother she absconded from in 2006.

 

He mother Louise has travelled from Lewis to be with her in England and the pair hope for a fresh start.

 

Four years on Molly has returned from Pakistan and is living with her 22-year-old sister Tahmina in England. Their mother Louise who still lives on Lewis is staying with them at present. Molly arrived a few days ago.

 

Molly was just 12 years old when she was secretly removed from her mother on Lewis in August 2006. She had just started first year at the Nicolson and went missing during the school day.

 

Teachers at the Nicolson Institute knew she was absent from classes but did nothing about it. The school has since changed its procedures.

 

Her father, Sajad Amed Rana, a very rich businessman, secretly met her in the Royal Hotel in Stornoway and plotted for her to leave the country without her mother's permission, after an earlier similar removal attempt was foiled.

 

He mother Louise Campbell said she had moved to Lewis to escape such an attempt by her ex-husband to take Molly. Louise was known as Campbell after she adopted her then partner’s surname. They lived in Tong at the time. She and her partner, who looks after their now four-year-old daughter, later split. Both live in different villages in Lewis not too far from each other.

 

Mr Rana staged Molly’s removal in defiance of a Scottish court refusing an action raised by him in June 2006 to see Molly.

 

By the end of the school day she had flown off Stornoway and was enroute to Lahore in Pakistan before the alarm was raised.

 

Louise who held sole custody rights, later dropped a legal battle to get Molly returned to Stornoway after her ex-husband agreed to permit visits and regular phone calls.

 

Mother and daughter spoke by telephone and msn messaging but Louise later claimed this was blocked for a period by Molly’s father.