In April this year, the court in Faro issued a final decision in the long-running case of kidnap victim Ellie Silva whose safety and future had been jeopardised by her biological father’s actions in kidnapping her for 7 months.
The judge found 100% in favour of Candice Gannon, Ellie’s mother, in a detailed decision and awarded her full custody of Ellie while confirming that Candice has done nothing wrong, that the kidnapping of Ellie was totally unjustifiable and ordered that Ellie should be raised by her mother in Ireland.
The Faro civil court went one better last week and declared that it no longer has any jurisdiction over Ellie as she now is "habitually resident in Ireland."
This removes the lingering and very real concern that after the kidnapping trial and likely jail sentence, Ellie’s biological father/ kidnapper Filipe Silva from Vilamoura would have continued his barrage of meritless legal challenges and perhaps succeeded in his application for full custody of his daughter, despite being the one that kidnapped her.
With the jurisdiction ruling from Faro court the possibility of Filipe Silva successfully obtaining custody of his daughter now are so slim as to be almost invisible.
(On October 17th the Evora High Court rejected Silva's appeal to the decision over custody so the Faro court's decision may not be appealed further. This process to obtain 'leave to remove' took 8 years.)
Better still for the Gannon family, now happily continuing family life in Ireland, the superior council of magistrates investigating the Faro instructional judge in the criminal case for kidnapping has ensured that the trial of Filipe Silva will take place "without any further delays," beyond those caused by the current inability of the judicial system to function properly due to the failure of the Citius computer system implementation plan.
The kidnapper Filipe Silva and his mother who stayed with Ellie during the time that she was kidnapped seem now to have run out of friends and favours.
Silva has applied for a state appointed lawyer to defend him in criminal cases taken against him relating to the kidnapping as he now claims that he can not afford a lawyer. The Portuguese taxpayer may well be footing his bill from now on.
Silva held his daughter at his friend Alfonso Marques' two bedroom flat in Oporto and refused to allow Ellie to communicate with her mother who did not know if Ellie was dead or alive.
Marques also has applied for state assistance to pay his legal bills in cases taken aginst him relating to the kidnapping.
The Gannon family have faced constant battles in Portugal with two trials for custody, a highly publicised kidnapping and decisions from the High Court, Supreme Court, Constitutional Court and Faro Court.
The Faro court’s decision that Ellie now comes under Irish jurisdiction, and that the trial for Ellie’s kidnapping soon will go ahead, represent a huge turn around for the Gannons.
Phillip and Candice Gannon’s persistence and refusal to lie down and be shafted by a judicial system, which at first gave every indication of favouring the kidnapper rather than the victim, is laudable but should have been unnecessary.