SUNDAY
WORLD

Two US fathers last night sent out desperate Christmas pleas to their estranged Irish wives:

By Nicola Tallant

“Please re-unite us with our abducted children!”

Californian’s Monty Springer and actor Josef Cannon both believe their children are being hidden out here. And they have begged the public to help them trace their children and make their Christmas dreams come true.

Hollywood actor Josef Cannon remains convinced that his wife Catherine Collins is living near her home in Navan with his snatched child Shelby Nicole, 8. The 42 year old has spent the past four years fighting to get his child back and just weeks ago oversaw the enactment of a new child law in the States named after his little girl.

Josef who stars in the newly released Like Mike says he will never give up looking for Shelby who he last saw in October 1998 when her mother took her to Ireland to see her grandparents Eugene and Eileen Collins. “They never came back. I have custody of my little girl but I haven't seen her in years. I believe she is still in Ireland with her mother.

“I just want Catherine to know that I will never give up looking for Shelby and fighting for her. “I have done everything I can from this end and even have had a law named after my daughter. That is not an easy thing to do and I hope it indicates to the Irish people how serious Shelby’s abduction is viewed here.

“The law basically gives courts authority to take into consideration certain things in custody cases. For example if one parent has ties in another country and has made threats of returning home the court can take this into consideration during a custody hearing.”

Josef says he is doing everything he can to reach out to his daughter whom he has full custody of. “I actively pursued the part in Like Mike (seen left with co-stars, Lil Bow Wow and Morris Chestnut) despite never having done a children’s movie before. I just reckoned it was going to be released around Christmas and that maybe her mother would take Shelby to it. “I wanted her to be the special one among her friends, who could point at the screen and say ‘That’s my daddy’.

“I'll never stop fighting for Shelby. I have so much to offer her as a father and it is very unfair that she is being denied that.” Josef and Catherine married in 1994 after they met in Los Angeles where she was working as a teacher. Within a year she had given birth to Shelby, but according to Josef things started going wrong after the baby was brought home when she started suffering from depression.

Over the following four years Josef brought Shelby up but kept in close contact with Catherine. The couple even visited Ireland together. In 1998 she brought Shelby to Ireland on a holiday but the pair never returned. In 1999 the High Court in Dublin ordered Catherine to return to the US with child but she never did.

The following November a felony arrest warrant was issued in the US for kidnapping against Catherine but she has continued to remain in hiding. Two months ago the Synclair - Cannon Child Abduction Act was passed, named after the missing child, and another youth, Larry Synclair jr. taken to Russia by his non-custodial mother..

Josef, a member of T.E.A.M H.O.P.E, an organization that assist people whose loved ones are either missing, run-aways or abducted. Josef, who has been helping Monty Springer and who brought him to my attention says, “Sometimes I think people don't understand the depth of the crime that has been committed against myself and people like Monty.

“The Irish Community needs to understand that Catherine Cannon & Kathleen Sullivan and those that are assisting them are committing a crime. “Shelby is now eight and a half and it is unfair that she has to miss out on all the wonderful things in her life that I could give her. “We all need to learn to agree to disagree in this world and that is really what Christmas is all about.”

But she isn't the only runaway mum believed to be hiding out there.

“My son John is seven and his nickname is Flurry. I love him very much and I just want him back,” said Monty, 40 from his home in California. “I very much believe he is in Cork with his mother and I just want him to know I'm here and I want him back.”

The distraught father says his wife Kathleen Sullivan disappeared with their son in July after attempting to get full custody of their son. After she vanished he says he discovered a diary in which she told of her intention to go to Ireland saying she had fallen in love with a distant relative in Cork. “She wrote a ledger and said she intended to go to Ireland - she said she was going for herself.

“We were no longer together and she had asked me for a divorce last year and told me she wanted to marry again. The whole thing is terribly unreal to me. “I don't care who she marries but I just want to be able to see my son again.”

Monty says he is hoping to come to Ireland to search for his son but would love to speak to him to wish him a Happy Christmas. “I would appeal to my wife’s better nature but I am a bit annoyed with her at the moment. We had had joint custody of Flurry but she tried to get full custody. Then she applied to the courts for a restraining order against me. She told lies and said that I had threatened to kill her and cut her up which is absolutely un-true.

“Unfortunately in California, the law grants a 21 day restraining order whenever a woman applies for it and then tackles any situation after that.

“I know now that she used that time to get to Ireland with my son. “As I couldn't approach them it took me three weeks to realize that she had gone and taken my son with her. “When I did realize I was completely devastated. I spoke to her family and found the ledger in which she clearly states her intention to go to Ireland.

“In it she says she has fallen in love with a man who she says lives in Rockchapel. She did work there for a year some time ago and she has relatives there.” Kathleen who is a US citizen has not been in contact with her ex-husband since her disappearance. Although he has phoned police here, he has been told that cannot act on foot without direct instruction from Interpol.