A fourteen year old story had resurfaced today, with news that one of the children of Jacqueline Gillespie has returned to Australia to visit her mother.
Jacqueline Gillespie, had her two children, Shahirah and Iddin, snatched away by their father, Malaysian prince, Raja Bahrin, in 1992.
But Shahirah, now 21, returned to Melbourne at the weekend to join her mother at the Hawthorn home she shares with her new husband Bill Cocaris.
Reading a statement outside their home today, Mr Cocaris said his wife, now known by her maiden name of Jacqueline Pascarl, wished to thank the media and others who had supported her.
"Jacqueline Pascarl and her daughter Shahirah would like to express their appreciation for your good wishes and support.
"They wish you to know that they are very, very happy – joyful in fact.
"This is, however, a very private time and sensitive indeed for the family and they ask you to understand and respect the need for restraint and privacy.
"There'll be no further comment or questions at this time."
Neighbours say they have seen the mother and daughter outside the house.
"Apparently they were very happy, they were holding hands and taking lots of photos," Channel 9 reported.
Well, at least she's happy now.
They married at Malaysia's Terengganu royal palace in March 1981.
The pair lived in Australia for six months before returning to Malaysia where they had two children.
Two weeks after Shahirah was born, the prince took another wife under Islamic law.
As his marriage to Ms Gillespie allegedly grew violent, she decided to escape and flew back to Australia with the children to visit her sick grandmother.
She filed for divorce in the Family Court in 1985 and received custody, but granted Prince Bahrin access.
After many court battles, the prince smuggled his children to Malaysia -- and they haven't seen their mother since.
Well, sounds like that was the foundation for a happy, successful marriage to me.
You know, I was going to furnish this entry with the great image The Age had of the dad's book, which described how he had "rescued" the children from Australia.
Mysteriously, the image seems to have disappeared...
(Incidently, while googling around for images, I stumbled across a few Islamic forums discussing this issue, and...hooo boy...not a lot of positive comments for Jacqueline. Apparently the whole case proved how "racist" and "Islamophobic" Australians were and that it was a good thing their father kidnapped them, otherwise they "would have been brought up in a non-Islamic culture". These were women, commenting, by the way...)
Posted by Quentin George at April 5, 2006 09:54 PMWhat a coincidence. I was literally wondering what happened to those kids a couple of days ago. I remember them looking very happy in Malayasia.
Old school.
Posted by: Engels at April 6, 2006 05:00 PM