Rebeca Rezende Boyle – Timeline

I send a letter to the gatehouse guards at the condominium that Mara’s parents live at and ask them to deliver it directly to Rebeca. No response.

Email reply from Lauro de Marco at [email protected] – SEDH. Tells me it’s a case of irregular transfer of custody and that I should contact the promotoria da infância in the local court.

Lauro de Marco emails again. Says that I have the right to exercise joint custody under article 21 of the Estatuto da Criança e Adolescente. He forwards my emails to a researcher at Universidade de Sao Paulo, Dra Gilka, but there is no response.

I email Roger’s daughter and secretary. Still no news.

I email Ana Armond at British Consulate for an update. Ana responds saying the family refused the visit and promised a welfare report through their lawyer. She has called every day for a week but it has not turned up. I respond asking her to take the matter higher up. She responds by asking me to contact REUNITE, a UK-based charity. She then passes my case to the Consular Directorate in London.

I email Lauro de Marco at criancasdesaparecidas.

Wendy Newsum from Consular Directorate at the Foreign Office contacts me, advises me to go through Hague Convention, contract a Brazilian lawyer of contact International Social Services. Sends me a child abduction leaflet. They miss the point completely and try to backtrack on Ana Armond’s offer of a welfare check. She says she will be my direct point of contact but ignores all the points I make about the case so far.

Roger emails. Says there’ll be a meeting between him and Luis Antonio. Says that Maria Josefina is irritated that I have ‘put the case on the internet’ (!) (I haven’t).

I email Milton again. No response.

Wendy Newsum sends letter saying there is nothing the Foreign Office can do. I respond with further points that Foreign Office is missing the point of what I am saying. I pass on relevant contact details for Rebeca’s family. Case is passed to Alex Pykett at the Child Abduction Unit of the Foreign Office.

I email [email protected] asking them to help locate Rebeca.

Email Neil Gerrard, MP, asking for electronic copy of letter.

Alex Pykett offers to write to in-laws through Roger to ask for Rebeca’s whereabouts.

I make Freedom of Information Act request to Foreign Office through Alex Pykett.

Send documents by post to Office of the Official Solicitor.

I email Alex Pykett to confirm that he has promised both me and my MP, Neil Gerrard that he will call or write to Mara and try and speak to her. He subsequently denies that he said this. MP confirms that he said it.

I email Neil Gerrard to tell him what Alex Pykett at the Foreign Office has done. I say I will not let it go.

Wendy McLean at Offsol asks for birth certificate and photo of Rebeca.

I contact Patricia de Texeira Lamego Soares at SEDH in Brazil directly in Portuguese. She replies that Mara has contacted them to say she finds it strange that I am using this route when there is already a lawyer on the case. She is told that she should not impede contact.

I email Neil Gerrard again about Alex Pykett’s broken promise. Pykett had said that they would get Interpol to check on Rebeca’s location as well.

I email Alex Marinkovic at Offsol to ask why the Brazilian central authority did not know that I had visited Brazil in 2005 and been turned away.

Alex Pykett of Foreign Office writes denying that he offered to write to or call Mara.

I email Patricia Lamego Soares patiently explaining that David Figueiredo, a lawyer recommended by her, has said that I can drop the current case, switch lawyers and pursue a Hague Convention case. If he can do it, why not the central authority? It is illogical.

I email Neil Gerrard again to urge him to persuade Alex Pykett to do what he promised.

Alex Marinkovic at Offsol closes my file. Says he cannot compel the Brazilian central authority to act. Patricia Lamego Soares says she has consulted a federal attorney who says that they would not take my case on. I object to his closing the case with a very reasoned explanation which he and Patricia Lamego Soares ignore.

I go to see Neil gerrard at his constituency surgery. He confirms that Alex Pykett had promised to contact Mara to try and persuade her to come to an arrangement and then suggests the parliamentary Ombudsmen. He says that this route never fails.

I respond by telling him that Offsol is involved in this and has a duty of care to me as a British citizen. They are ignoring the fact that the Brazilian central authority’s position is illogical. He asks for the lawyer’s details to pass to the central authority. I tell him that this lawyer was actually recommended by Ms Lamego Soares herself.

I send further information to do with failure of Foreign Office to do what they promised to Joe Scott at the Parliamentary Ombudsman for consideration.

I email Patricia Lamego Soares, Alex Marinkovic, Neil Gerrard, Hellen Kulazikulabe and Alex Pykett summarising the situation to date and my view of it. There is no response from any of them.

I make a Freedom of Information Act request and a Data Protection Act request for information relating to the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s deliberations.

She emails me a long explanation of how the Hague Convention works and how it is possible that Rebeca has been adopted and my patrio poder removed without my consent. She also says that there are very few lawyers acting in Hague Convention cases.

She says that someone is impersonating her (I wonder who).

Lalisa Froeder Dittrich emails saying that there is no law in Brazil which prohibits entry to the country and that she always had my UK address through the Central Authority. She says the Central Authority can provide a letter saying Mara has acted in bad faith.

Lalisa also emails me with the addresses of other lawyers, saying that I should not assume that all lawyers in Brazil act in the same way (one of these lawyers is David Figueiredo). She says I really must contract another private lawyer.

I email Hellen at ISS UK, copying her into correspondence with Social services. Hellen again says they are tied down by Brazilian side.

Cecilia, a Brazilian friend, locates phone number for the putative partner of Mara, who lives at Rua Feliciano Ciochi numero 113 ap 2 VI Ema, S José dos Campos SP. I call the number and he is very cagey, refuses to confirm his identity citing ‘reasons of security in a country like Brazil’.

Lalisa emails again to say that they will not allow Mara to go over the following Monday, that they will send the case to the AGU in the afternoon if she does not provide the documents. She has not been able to contact Dr David Figueiredo either. As for Interpol, she says that a request was made in January 2008 to locate Rebeca but that she had not been located yet. There is no reference number – they do it by the name of the child, according to Lalisa. Why does the BBC say that there is nothing under Rebeca’s name, then?

I tell Hellen of ISS that I am going to Brazil on 22nd July to try and find Rebeca and I need a response from SESIRS, Brazil. She responds saying ISS UK is a charity and that quite honestly she does not expect SESIRS to respond before I go. UK international social services can do nothing about it.

I email Stella and ask for confirmation that because Mara has played them for so long they have run out of time with the Hague Convention – that I need confirmation so that I can apply for compassionate leave from work to travel to Brazil.

My lawyer, Alexandre Cerqueira, told me through the prison bars in front of my cellmates that my “patrio poder” had been removed and that I was no longer my daughter’s legal father but that I could still be sued for child support. He said Rebeca had been adopted and her name changed.

I was released after 15 days. I left without seeing my daughter. I was still under threat of rearrest. Apparently, when my ex-wife found out that I was inside, she jumped for joy and said she hoped I’d be deported without a stitch on my back. Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.

Email from Alexandre – in São José dos Campos there are two legal processes against me in the family court but they can’t be accessed. It’ll take 15 days to see them.

She has been adopted by a man called JOSÉ AUGUSTO DOS SANTOS SÁ, a man who I have never heard of and who has never attempted to identify himself to me.

I call them and ask for a statement listing everything they had done to try and trace Rebeca.

I receive a letter from the Foreign Office on plain paper. Very scrappy looking, listing some vague points about what the Foreign Office did to contact Rebeca and Mara. The tone seems exasperated and in bad grace, as if they are not happy to give it to me. I phone and complain saying that it is like I have to drag things out of them and that they are not acting in good grace or good faith. They send a new letter which sounds more helpful on better official paper.

2010

R José Augusto Dos Santos 86, Ap 1501
Floradas de São José
São José

Asks that they be summonsed at this address.

I email Alexandre. He says he has been in SJDC and they have still not been summonsed. Says that some bureaucratic issues have held it up and that there’s a partial strike in the judicial system. The official guarantees that they are preparing the summons to be sent to the court official in July.

I say that I thought the writ had been issued in October 2009!!!

I ask what has happened in the meantime and whether the summons will be served on 1st July or 31st July.

Lalisa Froeder from SEDH emails to say she is leaving SEDH and to offer her sympathies for my trouble.

1. Despatching of warrant for summons – the court official takes the warrant to the address indicated by the judge (this is happening) and there is a deadline of 60 days.
2. The court official records on the back of the warrant what happens when it is enforced – whether they have been located or not, in other words whether the act has been carried out. They have a 15-day deadline to present a defence.
3. On the basis of what has been confirmed by the court official, if they haven’t located the parties being sought they will either deliberate what to do next or seek information through the tax authorities to locate other addresses. We are obliged to wait for the court official’s report.

The summons must be served at the address indicated on the warrant. The court official will go there. Other addresses, including workplaces, can only be used if they are not found in the original place indicated. There’s no point seeking José Augusto in Petrobras because Mara and Rebeca will not be there. The summons must be served on all three.

He reaffirms that everything is continuing within the legal process and tells me that I must continue to wait.

Mara Silvia Oliveira Rezende turns up in court with José Augusto Dos Santos Sá, Rebeca´s stepfather. This is the first time I have seen her in the flesh in 16 years and the first time I have ever seen José Augusto Dos Santos Sá. They do not bring Rebeca. The judge does not challenge this. In court, Mara plays the victim and cries while I give evidence and José Augusto Dos Santos Sá holds her hand and puts her arm round her. The judge tells her to leave the room.

The judge, while sympathizing with my case, tells me that even if I win and we reverse the fraudulent adoption, Rebeca can simply change her name to whatever she wants by deed poll the following day since she is already an adult. It is clear that, since she is not here to hear my side of the story and has not been told that I am here, she will simply follow her mother’s orders. Mara is rude to the judge during questioning – curling her lip at him and saying ‘why don’t you ask my mother?’ in response to questions about how my imprisonment in 2008 had come about. The judge is extremely unimpressed.

During a break in proceedings, Mara approaches me and offers to shake my hand. During a conversation, she says the following a) she and Rebeca’s stepfather had become evangelical Christians and that they had never said anything against me to Rebeca, b) that I should thank this guy, José Augusto, for having raised Rebeca (in secret, without asking, without my knowledge, and without ever having had the courage ever to identify himself to me), c) that Rebeca had been on the point of going to the UK to visit her cousins (despite the fact that Mara had always claimed in court documentation that she had no idea how to contact me or my family) and, confusingly, that d) Rebeca was scared to go out alone in case she was kidnapped and that she did not want to come to court because she was scared. I do not believe that she has ever been told that I am looking for her. Mara insists on speaking in English, even though I speak fluent Portuguese and José Augusto does not speak English. When I ask her why, she says gravely as if talking to a five year old child, “it’s to protect you, Martin. We are in a court here.”

She does all the talking and her partner just nods his head. She leaves making threats that I will never see Rebeca ‘this way’. Lawyer and witnesses advise me not to get into discussion with her. I don’t see Rebeca, but this is what I expected.

The judge asks when I have to leave Brazil and then says that his written judgement will be out in between 30 and 50 days.

I visit a man who was a witness at my wedding in 1988. He used to be my father-in-law’s best friend, but says that they have not spoken for many years. He saw Rebeca when she was small and she seemed very bright and clever – he is shocked by what I tell him about the news I have received about her.

I visit Mara’s former therapist. She tells me that Mara is clearly very sick – that she is psychotic and paranoid, that she hasn’t spoken to her since 2008, when she called her out of the blue to tell her that I had disappeared without a trace. I put her straight on the story and it seems she cannot believe that this kind of thing can happen in the Brazilian legal system – that I must have been badly counselled. I tell her that it would never have happened if I had been living in Brazil, had had a parent who was a lawyer and an endless supply of money with which to fund endless legal challenges and access requests. She looks blankly at me and tells me that the law is open to everyone. What is most galling, perhaps, is the way in which some of the people I try to explain this to are completely insensitive and impervious to the personal tragedy that has occurred here and start to interrogate, pick holes and offer advice on what I should have done as if I had never thought of these things.

I speak to the priest who married us in 1988. He is also a psychologist and has known Mara since she was a child. He has not spoken to her for many years, but says that he will try to find a way to speak to Mara’s parents. We joke that, since Mara has now become a born-again Christian, it is unlikely that she will be happy about an intervention from a Catholic priest.

I email Milton, Mara’s father, on the off chance.

I speak on the phone to Mara’s 94 year-old grandmother. She says that Mara disappeared many years ago and that nobody in the family has seen her since – that she is ‘crazy’

I get an email from Milton, asking me to call him. We talk for an hour. He says that Mara has not spoken to them for 5 years and that she has cut herself off from them completely, that his family life is in tatters and that he is distraught. He says he hasn’t seen Rebeca for 5 years. I feel sorry for him, but then remember everything that has happened, the imprisonment, the long years and all his emails rejecting my attempts at negotiation. I haven’t seen Rebeca for 16 years. I give him the priest’s number.

I go to SJDC again and speak to the gate guard and to other neighbours who give me more interesting information about Rebeca. I tell them the full story, frankly and honestly, and they call other neighbours out to meet me. They are sympathetic. The talk is of a ‘weird’, ‘strange’ family, a desperately shy girl with no friends and that they always suspected that there was something wrong. I have to contain myself.