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
we argued because of it, then I had to be punished – even if he was in the wrong – and then he would just ignore me.
I decided to leave the scan lying around the house so that he might pick it up and look at it when he was no longer angry with me. However hazy the scan, I desperately hoped that he would want to see the picture of our baby. His baby. I don’t know if he ever did. At the time I didn’t want to confront him because I knew it would lead to another argument. We were quarrelling a lot at this stage and, of course, the more we rowed, the more distant we became.
After each argument, it took longer and longer for us to start talking to each other again. The funny thing was, when we did make up, Fawzi must have felt guilty because he would be lovely and act like the old Fawzi I had fallen in love with. At times, I felt as much in love with him as when we first met. It was all very confusing.
Fawzi also refused to attend the second scan appointment, but reluctantly agreed to accompany me to the third scan, which revealed I was having a girl. I was delighted and my unbounded joy wasn’t at all muted by Fawzi’s lack of enthusiasm. I’m not sure it would have made any difference if I had been carrying a boy – his only comment being, ‘Boys are easier to handle.’
I immediately went out shopping, and I couldn’t resist buying some pink dresses – I probably bought more than I needed but I was just too thrilled to care if I was being silly.
When Fawzi and I did talk about our baby, we discussed all our hopes and fears, and even contemplated which school she would attend. Fawzi wanted the baby to be brought up as a Muslim. I told him that I was happy with that decision, but stressed that, once the child reached an age where she could decide for herself, it would be her decision as to which spiritual path she chose to follow. After all, it was her life and I wouldn’t want to direct her one way or the other. Fawzi was happy with this.
Sadly, this seemed to be the only thing that Fawzi was happy about because for the next few months I hardly saw him. We were working at different times of the day and, whenever he did have an evening off, he would visit friends or make some excuse why we couldn’t spend time together. The tension between us increased and, when I did tackle him, we would just end up arguing. Fawzi had a really stubborn streak and would always maintain that he was in the right.
It was so frustrating – he just wouldn’t communicate with me and I wouldn’t let him off the hook. The more I demanded of him, the more he reacted. It got to the point where he accused me of sleeping with other men. Mainly he insulted me with abusive language, calling me a ‘slag’ or a ‘prostitute’. He even tried to get me to admit that the baby was not his. Our arguments became more and more volatile. One night, they reached near breaking point. I’d been out with some friends for the evening, and one of his friends, who had seen me talking to a male friend, telephoned Fawzi to say he had seen me out. Fawzi then accused me of having sex with this man and, when I denied these ridiculous allegations, he got me by the throat and hit me.
I was on the sofa and he got on top of me, screaming, ‘This isn’t my baby, you slag!’ He punched me in the stomach and I was so frightened of losing the baby, I kicked out and he let go.
I realised that our relationship would never be the same, but, incredible as it must sound, I still loved him and I thought we could work things out. I tried to confide in Brian, who had known Fawzi since they were both at nursery school, and, although he obviously felt some loyalty, he was quite sympathetic and agreed that his best friend’s behaviour was unreasonable. In fact, the two of them squabbled a lot of the time and Brian used to become frustrated with Fawzi. In the end, he stopped talking to Fawzi. Brian had lent him a sizeable amount of money and he never paid him back. When his English course finished, Brian returned to Libya, leaving the two of us in the house alone. I missed him.
I wanted to talk to my parents, but, although they realised Fawzi was spending more and more time away from me, I didn’t want to worry them with his aggressive behaviour; I also thought I could handle the situation myself. To their credit, Mum and Dad had always tried to be fair to Fawzi, and they even stumped up some money for him to buy a car. Unfortunately, Fawzi didn’t have any money to tax the vehicle and it was eventually towed away.
One night, while I was still heavily pregnant, there was some loud knocking at the front door. I went to open it and standing on the doorstop were two men. They looked Libyan, but I had never seen them before. One of them looked me up and down and then said, ‘Is Fawzi here?’ Fawzi was skulking in the background, but, as he didn’t come to the door, it was clear that he didn’t want to talk to these men.
‘Can I help?’ I replied.
‘We need to see Fawzi,’ said one of them. ‘Is he in?’
I ignored the question and could see they were a little agitated.
‘Do you know what your husband has done?’ the other man snapped. ‘We need to see Fawzi – he owes us money.’
Immediately I became defensive, saying, ‘I doubt that very much!’
‘We gave him money to give to our families in Libya.’
‘How much?’ I queried.
‘£2,000.’
‘There must be some mistake…’
‘No, there is no mistake. The only mistake will be if he doesn’t pay back our money. Then we’ll have to take him for a walk, if you know what I mean.’
Fawzi had been to Libya a few weeks earlier, but he hadn’t mentioned any of this to me. Before I could say anything else, he came to the door and told me to go away but I refused.
‘I want to know what’s going on.’
Fawzi was getting angry: ‘Leave it to me!’
With that, he ushered me away and spoke to the men in Arabic. This time it was me who was hanging around in the hallway, waiting for the exchange to end. After a long conversation, they left and I confronted my husband.
‘What’s going on? You need to tell me what this is all about.’
But Fawzi just shrugged and denied any wrongdoing. He said that the men were being stupid and it was a big mistake. I told him that this sort of behaviour was unacceptable and that I wouldn’t have strange men coming to our house and threatening him; we were both going to the police station first thing in the morning. He reluctantly agreed.
The next day, Fawzi refused to get out of bed so I decided to go on my own. I wasn’t prepared to have this happen again and I thought that the police might be able to help, so I told the desk sergeant what had happened. Although understanding, he told me there was nothing that the police could do until something actually happened. I couldn’t understand this as the Libyans seemed intent on doing Fawzi harm but there was nothing more I could do either. I was terrified that all this stress might have some adverse effect on the baby’s health, but I also didn’t want any harm to come to Fawzi. So I left the police station, intending to return home, but I became so worried that these men might carry out their threats that I went straight to my building society and applied to extend the mortgage by £2,000. I still didn’t know if Fawzi had stolen the money from these men, but if neither he nor the police could sort this out, then at least I could.
That night, the two Libyans returned. I answered the door and explained what I had done to raise the money; I told them that they would have their money as soon as possible and for some reason they seemed to trust me. The following week, I gave them £2,000 in cash and told them to stay out of our lives. Far from being grateful, however, Fawzi seemed to expect that it had been my wifely duty to extricate him from this trouble and refused to discuss the matter further.
In the following weeks, he became increasingly uncommunicative and secretive. Then one day, by chance, I found out why. Usually I left for work by the time the postman called, but on occasion I was around to check the mail. On these occasions, I could see that we were receiving letters but they were addressed to people I didn’t know, including quite a lot of correspondence for Fawzi’s brothers,