Private eye is charged with child abduction

HE private investigator who helped an Irish father trace his son in Zambia, has been charged with assisting a child abduction and released on bail.

Cork father Richard Quarry undertook an epic seven-week trip to rescue his son Ethan (7) earlier this month, and triumphantly brought him home on Saturday.

He hired a private eye in Zambia to help him to locate Ethan, and once Richard and Ethan were reunited, they made their way straight for the Zimbabwean border.

This morning Richard revealed that the PI has been charged with assisting in a child abduction.

"He was arrested and charged for assisting with a child kidnapping. He was released on bond. So now it's a wait-and-see situation," he told the Herald.

"I'm in regular contact with him because from where I stand, there has been no crime committed in Zambia.

"In the child abduction act and written legislation, if the person has a right to take the child, then it's not an offence.

"It's scary that he's been charged. If he's been charged, what could have happened to me if I was caught?"

Richard says that the PI's case will be helped by the fact that himself and Ethan were deported out of Zambia by the authorities. The PI has a document in his possession to prove this.

"The Zambian authorities deported me and I have a copy of that deportation. So I think the PI has the defence that I didn't smuggle him out, the authorities deported them.

"It's a shame that they've decided to do this. My own feeling is that they [the Zambian authorities] are embarrassed by what happened."

Earlier this month, Richard bravely walked into Ethan's school in Zambia and took him from his class.

The father was grilled by border police for three and a half hours, because his son's Irish passport did not have an entry stamp on it.

SOURCE-HERALD