For nine excruciating days, the mother of an 8-month-old boy feared for the worse when her Swedish husband ran away with the baby.
The disappearance of the husband, identified as Jimmy Norby, with the baby, Charlie, on 20 January 2014 followed a quarrel at a resort in Chiang Mai where the couple had been staying.
Incidence of child abductions by a parent in mixed marriages is on the rise in Thailand.
Friends of the distressed wife then launched a frantic Facebook campaign, posting a photo of little Charlie with his father in an attempt to locate them. The photo has been shared widely.
Then on 25 January, the wife received a text message from her husband, indicating that they were in Pai district of Mae Hong Son.
The story ended well when Norby suddenly showed up at the Chiang Mai resort on 29 January and the family was happily reunited.
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RETRACTION!
ScandAsia apologizes unreservedly for publishing the photo we mistakenly thought was that of the mother of the child and we have immediately deleted it. We did try several times to reach by phone the contact person mentioned in the outcry for help published on Facebook, but the phone was not taken. It was not explained on Facebook which nationality the mother was – it was widely assumed by people, who helped spread it, that she was Thai. We have now deleted any reference to the mothers nationality.
More details of the drama, which eventually ended happily, is in the comment by Lawrence Abramson below.
Gregers Moller
You’ve broken the record in the most mistakes in one article!
1. The couple in question is NOT a Swedish/Thai couple. The father is Swedish and the mother is a Swedish citizen of Iranian origin, working for the Swedish government.
2. My friend (a Thai academic)and I, who live in Chiangmai, met the baby’s mother on a long-distance train in Sweden about 13 months ago. We invited her and her child (then 7) to visit us in Thailand if she and her family wanted to do so. She was pregnant at the time.
3. She and her bf (father of the baby) stayed at our house for several days. They had a fight and he ran off with the baby.
4. My friend took the mother of the baby to various police stations and called hospitals, the consulate, etc, in an effort to locate the father and the baby.
5. After seven days, the father returned from Pai with the baby, stayed a couple of days, and left together for the south.
6. My friend never met this man before he arrived in January. It is most embarrassing for her (and for me, a lawyer and Swedish translator) to have to confront questions about this matter, particularly as you include a picture of my friend and the baby, which seems to identify her as the mother.
Weena and I INSIST that you publish a retraction of this article, and an apology for being so irresponsible.
Lawrence Abramson
Attorney at Law