Sunday 11 November 2007

Solicitor jailed for snatching own baby daughter from social workers

Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0545.htm
A solicitor who snatched his baby from two care workers before going on the run has been jailed for 20 months.
Jonathan Phillips, 40, punched the two women, one of whom was heavily pregnant, before grabbing his daughter and speeding away in his car.
The child had been taken into care because of concerns over his wife's mental health - although the couple insist she does not present a risk.
They were allowed to visit their daughter for two hours every day at a family contact centre in King's Lynn, Norfolk. But Phillips lashed out because he felt staff were treating her too roughly.
He shouted, "Take your hands off my baby" before overturning a table, attacking the women and seizing his child, who was four months old at the time.
Phillips, a soldier in the Territorial Army, fled with his wife Erica and the child, who cannot be named for legal reasons. They were stopped on the M6 near Birmingham later the same day.
Phillips, of Downham Market, Norfolk, was sent to prison after admitting kidnap and two charges of assault causing actual bodily harm.
Before he was sentenced he said: "I was acting under extreme provocation. Social services had taken our baby into care under dubious circumstances and whenever we visited her, the staff handled her roughly, overfed her and generally ill-treated her.
"I lashed out in the heat of the moment. I could see my family crumbling before me.
"Now the tragedy is that she looks set to be adopted and we will not be able to see her again until she is 18."

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