Читать книгу For the Love of Nadia - My daughter was kidnapped by her father and taken to Libya. This is my heart-wrenching true story of my quest to bring her home - Sarah Taylor - Страница 6

There’s an old cliché about ordinary people having the capacity to do extraordinary things. Sarah Taylor’s story invests new meaning into that well-worn phrase. It’s a story of hope for any parent fighting for a child against impossible odds.

Leaving a job, home and family in Wigan for Libya, with little more than the clothes you stand up in, takes a particular brand of determination and courage. As Sarah always said, it’s what any parent in her position would have done. She’s probably right, but the truth is that not every parent would have the strength of character to go on to achieve what Sarah did, and in the incredible way she did it.

My involvement began in late 2008 when Sarah’s mum and dad, Dot and Dave, visited my advice surgery in Golborne with Detective Inspector Phil Owen. Alongside reports of noisy neighbours or bins not collected, the story they began to describe stood out.

I will always remember my surprise when Dot and Dave told me how this young woman, Sarah – who at that point I hadn’t met – had already secured, on her own steam, an audience with ‘The Leader’ and recruited him to her cause. There and then, I knew that this Sarah was a force to be reckoned with. She has that rare combination of fierce intelligence, with a genuine warmth and decency – qualities that never deserted her, even during her darkest hours, which explains why so many people wanted to help her.

The truth is, she couldn’t have achieved it on her own and I’ll be forever grateful for the incredible professionalism and compassion of Phil Owen, Ambassador Vincent Fean and his staff. They represent British public service at its best.

Sarah’s journey was, of course, intensely personal but one of the remarkable things about her story is the extent to which the personal inevitably became entangled with the public and the political.

The backdrop to all of the events described in this book is a simmering Libya and Middle East on the brink of massive upheaval. It didn’t feel like it at the time, but, looking back, I can see now that the timing of Sarah’s fight was perhaps the single biggest stroke of luck she had. The co-operation we were able to secure between the British and Libyan Governments on Nadia’s case simply wouldn’t have been possible, even five years earlier, without the thawing of relations in the middle of the decade. But it’s also the case that, if Nadia hadn’t been located before Libya was engulfed in the chaos of civil war, then there are real doubts over whether we would have ever got her back.

Just before Christmas 2011, I was invited to the opening of a new primary school. It was only when I walked into the classroom that I remembered this was Nadia’s school. Seeing that confident smile from such a beautiful girl, and hearing her speak with the broadest of Wigan accents, will always be one of the most rewarding moments of my life.

Rt. Honourable Andy Burnham,

Shadow Health Secretary, February 2013