PARIS (CP) - A French woman imprisoned for abducting two of her children from their Canadian father insisted Wednesday she was "not a terrorist," and driven only by the desire to protect them.
Nathalie Gettliffe...
...Gettliffe was convicted last month in Vancouver to 16 months in prison. She pleaded guilty to two counts of abduction, saying she took the children to France in 2001 to take them from their father because he was increasingly active in The International Church of Christ - which is banned in France as a sect...
The woman who abducted her two children from British Columbia and kept them in France for five years after losing a lengthy custody battle has been sentenced to serve six more months in prison.
The worst part of Nathalie Gettliffe's crime was the psychological damage she did to her children and ex-husband, Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg said as she handed down the sentence in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver on Monday...
..."I just want to apologize to the children and to apologize to Scott," Nathalie Gettliffe said to the court...
...The judge will sentence Getliffe on Monday...
...Grant said...
..."Through the translator I explained to them I don't belong to a cult, I don't give all my money to them. If I give my money to anybody it's lawyers."...
VANCOUVER -- The woman at the heart of a high-profile child custody tussle that has riveted her native France for the past year was given a judicial tongue-lashing in B.C. Supreme Court yesterday...
...Ms. Gettliffe was not present for the ruling. She remains in a Fraser Valley jail awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty this month to two counts of child abduction...
...Outside the court, Ms. Gettliffe's lawyer, Vincent Pigeon, said he was not dissatisfied with the judge's ruling, noting that his client will now have more visits with her children and they are restricted to attending Mr. Grant's Vancouver Church of Christ no more than once a week...
November 3, 2006 Frenchwoman pleads guilty in B.C. court to kidnapping her two children, Greg Joyce, Macleans, Canada
VANCOUVER (CP) - Nathalie Gettliffe finally pleaded guilty Friday to abducting two of her children, but the French woman's intriguing case is far from over.
There was a custody battle, an abduction to France, court proceedings in both countries, a seemingly ill-advised return to Vancouver and immediate arrest ... and allegations that her Canadian ex-husband belonged to a cultish church...
...Gettliffe said previously she took her children to France in 2001 to remove them from the influence of their father because of his activities in a church that's considered a cult in France - the International Church of Christ.
But Grant told reporters Friday that in France the Catholic Church regards all other churches as "sects" and that his ex-wife never raised the religion issue until she got to France with the children...
VANCOUVER - ...Nathalie Gettliffe ... journeyed all the way from her native France to ... British Columbia...
...she found herself arrested at the Vancouver airport and thrown in prison...
...Ms. Gettliffe was being charged with two long-standing counts of child abduction.
The charges were laid after she fled five years ago to France with two children from a broken marriage, in defiance of a B.C. court order...
...she has been characterized with great sympathy in the media as a brave mother seeking to protect her children ...from an alleged cult-like church attended by the children's father, Scott Grant...
The Vancouver Church of Christ has links to the U.S.-based International Church of Christ, banned from many U.S. university campuses for cult-like recruiting drives...
Students interested in joining the Christian Advance Club at the University of Calgary will have to look elsewhere for membership after the prospective group was denied official club status earlier this year. The proposed Christian Advance, comprised of members of the International Churches of Christ, was rejected by the Students' Union Clubs Committee because of the church's history on university campuses throughout North America and Europe...
...The ICOC, also known as the Boston Movement...has been banned from some 40 university campuses including Boston and ...UBC, York, McMaster and the University of Calgary...
...SU Vice-President Operations and Finance Robbie White. "We consulted both the Chaplains' Centre and Campus Security before deciding that it wasn't in the best interests of students to sanction this particular club...
...For now, an official club representing the International Churches of Christ will not exist at the U of C, although members of the church continue to actively recruit new members from within the student population.
Representatives of the Calgary branch of the ICOC would not comment on the issue this week.
If you are feeling pressured or are being harrassed by members of a religious group, contact the Chaplains' Centre...or the University Harrassment Advisor...
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