PATIALA: The ordeal of
Craig Doody, whose 24-year-old autistic daughter with the mental age of a 14-year-old, who landed in India to live with her boyfriend, came to an end this afternoon, when he learnt that the family of her boyfriend
Gurdeep Singh got her on board a plane back to New Zealand on Monday morning.
The news was broken to Craig by some local police officials with whom he was in touch to get his daughter back. Craig, who reached
Patiala in the morning in an attempt to meet the boy’s family to request them to let Jessica return home, learnt that Gurdeep and his family took her to New Delhi early morning and helped her board a flight back to New Zealand. At the time Craig learnt that his daughter was waiting at the Singapore airport to continue her journey.
“I checked with the airport authorities, who confirmed that Jessica was on board a flight to New Zealand and she was at Singapore airport at that moment,” he said.
Jessica flew back on a new passport with a changed identity made legally in NZ with the help of
Mandeep Singh, who happened to be a friend of Gurdeep Singh. It was learnt that Jessica had tried to fly out of NZ in December, last year, soon after Gurdeep left the country as his application for work visa extension had been denied by the immigration authorities. However, as there was a court order banning her travel out of the country without the company of her mother or sister, she was stopped by the airport authorities.
Following this
Mandeep helped Jessica legally change her identify and add Gurdeep’s surname to her passport, after which she managed to fly out of NZ and reach India as the system did not red flagged her travel.
She had gone missing from her Christchurch home in New Zealand on March 14 and her family had reported a missing case with the Kiwi police on March 19. On March 27 the family learnt that Jessica has been traced to Sarabha Nagar, residence of her boyfriend Gurdeep Singh, following which her father Craig reached India on April 1. Though he met Jessica at a local police station last Thursday, but the authorities did not allow him to take her back after she refused to return to NZ. The cops said as Jessica was a major and travelled on legal documents so no action could be taken against her or her boyfriend Gurdeep.
“I had medical records and court documents that showed that Jessica was suffering from incapacity arising from developmental delay and was very vulnerable to the influence of unscrupulous people,” he said adding the NZ court while banning her travel out of country had brought on record that, her naivete and inexperience in world travel was such that she was at a serious risk. The court had made an interim personal order that Jessica Dooby will not leave New Zealand unless in the company of her mother (Sarah Doody) or sister.”
Jessica’s sister Sarah Doody had also confirmed that she was autistic and had dyspraxia conditions which affected her ability to gauge social situations.
Craig said he feared that Jessica could be trafficked and sold to anyone as she did not have a friend or family circle in India to protect her against exploitations and hence it was a must for him to take her back to NZ.
He said some local people helped him get in touch with some senior police officials, who after going through Jessica’s medical and court records were taken aback and called up Gurdeep’s father and asked him to let Jessica meet Craig. “The cop whom I met also called up his senior and pointed out that as per the medical records Jessica had a mental age of a 14-year-old. Later, we learnt that the family had realised its mistake and sent Jessica back."
He said the family back in NZ was making preparations to receive Jessica in a big way. He also thanked the
Punjabi Community in NZ which had launched an online campaign there to mount pressure on the NZ authorities to help Craig get his daughter back. He said he would be flying out of India on Monday night to meet his daughter there.
