Man who abducted Calgary children believed he was acting in their best interest: CPS
Posted Oct 27, 2016 3:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Calgary police can’t say why a man abducted his common-law wife’s six children and brought them to Ontario this week, but they are explaining why an Amber Alert wasn’t issued in the case.
Sgt. Darren Smith said the children, aged between 18 months and 11-years-old, were taken on Monday while the mother was away and the man was in contact with authorities throughout the week by email.
“The general tone was that the children were in no immediate threat and that he believed that he was doing what was right for the kids,” he said.
The SUV they were in was pulled over in a traffic stop and the 49-year-old man was taken into custody and he now faces six counts of child abduction under 14.
Smith said in every case like this, they have to weigh whether or not notifying the public is actually in the best interest of the investigation.
“In this case, we actually were aware very early on that he was in Ontario and that the children were safe,” he said.
“By actually putting out that media request, that actually may cause him to leave the jurisdiction where we believed he was.”
While the mother was away, man was taking care of them at the time, although he isn’t their legal guardian and Smith said it’s unclear what prompted the abduction.
“We haven’t interviewed him as of yet to understand the true reasoning of why he brought them across country, generally speaking with any cases of parental abduction, it’s usually because they believe it’s in the best interest of the child.”
“That’s why it’s very rare for parental child abductions to actually be very high risk because they’re actually believing that they’re acting in the best interest.”
The mother still has guardianship of the children and authorities are working to reunite them as soon as possible.
Smith was asked if any charges against the mother are possible.
“Not at this point from us, but that will be an investigation that will be looked into later on,” he said, adding there’s history between police and the family.
