A North Carolina court in Wake County has granted custody of a two-year-old abandoned in Kenya to the father who has been fighting to get the child left behind by the mother.
The Kenyan US based couple had a bitter custody battle with them even filing a case before a Kenyan court over the same issue.
The couple had come to Kenya for vacation but the mother decided to take the child to her mother’s house where she left him and went back to the US.
The Kenyan court had ordered both parents to come to Kenya within 30 days and take him back to the US since he was a US Citizen.
Judge Young Bedford granted custody to the father who resides in North Carolina but the mother has been given joint custody too but primary legal custody has been given to the father.
Judge Bedford has also said that the father will have the sole authority to maintain the child’s travel documentation and sole authority to collect the child from Kenya and take him back to the US.
“The Plaintiff-father shall have custody of the child at all times when the child is not with the defendant mother custody,” the court ruled.
The court also ordered that the mother shall be given opportunity to have physical custody of the child every second and fourth weekend of each month from Friday evening till Monday morning.
The court has also said that the mother should be allowed to speak to the minor on phone every Wednesday between 7 pm and 8 pm.
Judge Bedford has also cautioned both parents who are estranged from saying anything negative about the other to the child when they have custody.
“Neither party shall attempt to destroy in any manner the affection that the minor child has for the other party,” court ordered.
In the Kenyan case, the father had claimed that he didn’t know the whereabouts of the minor after his estranged wife disappeared with him when they landed in Kenya.
Through Lawyer Danstan Omari, told court that they had even written to the DCI to investigate the whereabouts of his son.
The couple got married in 2019 and separated in February this year with the man claiming that the woman was violent towards him.
Omari had questioned why his client’s son who was accustomed to life in the US was left behind in Kisii by the mother without the father’s consent.
