Reunite Mum and Daughter...

Hi, I'm Harriet and I am supporting an amazing woman and mother, Amy (for safety reasons, not her real name) who has experienced one of the cruellest things I can imagine. Suddenly overnight last April, Amy had to flee her home leaving behind her daughter all contact with her beloved daughter severed by the child's father.

It is hard to imagine or understand how this could even happen and as a mum myself, I just cannot imagine the pain of losing your child. I thought that getting her back would be pretty straightforward, after all, Amy is an incredible mum and had done absolutely nothing wrong. However, having personally visited a solicitor with her I am sadly discovering how complicated and difficult it is dealing with the courts in this unique and sad situation. Amy desperately wants to manage this situation herself but I have convinced her that the most important thing right now is not to get the best help - though she would be entitled to legal aid, sadly the solicitor who was supporting her through legal aid has not filed even the most basic documents to get the process started and this is a matter of urgency at this point.

Please read Amy's words below and if you can afford to support in any way to reunite this mother and daughter, please do. I will be personally overseeing all funds raise anything that is left will go to an amazing charity that supports women who have had to flee their homes.

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Hi, my name is *Amy and in the last few months, I have gone through the hardest and lowest point in my life.

Back at the end of April 23, I had to flee my home due to an incident which occurred meaning I couldn't return for my safety. Since this point, with the assistance of the police and many support charities it would come to light (though I'm still unable to get my head around it myself) that I have been in a financial, emotional and domestic abusive relationship for the last 6 years. I thought about leaving many times with my daughter, especially in the last 2 years but I didn't have the strength, courage or funds to do so.

When I fled back in April, I had only had the clothes on me and my handbag at the time of the incident and my daughter was being cared for by my ex-partner's mother due to the half term holidays.

Since that time the police have been involved numerous times with many additional incidences against him and my daughter has remained out of area with my ex-partner's mother, with myself being too scared to go and get her due to the repercussion from him and his family.

I feel unbelievably let down by the police, who on numerous times throughout the last 5 months have said they would assist me in getting my daughter back and all my belongings from the house. Neither of which has happened and now I'm left in a situation where I have no home, no job, little belongings and most importantly I don't have my daughter, who I have been the soul carer of since the day she was born.

Due to his controlling and aggressive behaviour, he is now using my daughter as a pawn to punish me further for leaving and has applied to the courts for full custody, even though he isn't looking after her and due to his work/ social life has no time to be with her at all.

I have been begging all services to aid me in making sure she is safe and to bring her back to me, but due to 3 different boroughs needing to be involved and the lack of communication and either one of them wanting to accept responsibility for my daughter, I have been hitting my head against a brick wall.

I tried to deal with this on my own as much as possible as I believe this is my situation and I've never been one for accepting help. I didn't want to bring anyone else down or show anyone else the true affects this has been having on me.

But it got to my lowest point a few weeks ago where I felt my life was no longer worth living and didn't know what else to do. So for the sake of my daughter, I reached out to a couple of people, one of them being the incredible Harriet, who instantly helped me gain control over the legal side of my situation.

Due to having very little funds to my name and now needing to urgently appoint a solicitor to help me fight for my daughter is the reason Harriet has very kindly set up this page. I really didn't want to do this as I have anyways found a way of getting through life without having to ask for money from others, but on reflection with Harriet, I need to swallow my pride and accept help if people are able to. To justify this in my mind, i will do everything I can in the future when I have my life back on track to help other people to pay this back. Any additional money that isn't used on solicitors and barristers will go towards the charity who has been keeping me safe for the last 5 months.

Anything you are able to help with will be unbelievably appreciated more than you could ever know.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate your time.