Australian father James Gorry paying child support to ex-wife who took his daughter to India

James Gorry told news.com.au he has not seen or spoken to daughter Alice, 14, since her mother took her to India in August 2011.

He said there was nothing the government could do to help him regain access to his daughter because, unlike Australia, India was not a signatory to The Hague Convention.

Mr Gorry said he was still required by the Child Support Agency to pay $1700 per month in child support to his ex-wife.

“I want to make it very clear I have absolutely no problem paying child support because my daughter is my responsibility,” he said.

“I’m not a disgruntled father ... I want the money put aside for Alice or until such time as we can provoke contact to be made.

“It’d be a fair assumption to say me paying this money makes me an accessory to (keeping Alice in India) - $1700 is a small fortune in India.”

Mr Gorry, who has two young sons with his new wife, said he had been approached by child recovery agencies who offered to “snatch” Alice back but turned them down because he didn’t want to take her f-rom her mother or end up in jail.

“I’m not after a recovery for my daughter, I’m not trying to do what Sally Faulkner did in Beirut. I just want to speak to her once in a while and ask, ‘are you happy?’ and ‘how are you going?’” Mr Gorry said.

“I just want to have the opportunity to be her father and spend holidays with her and let her share some time with her half brothers.”

James Gorry wants contact with his daughter Alice who he hasn’t seen in almost five years. Picture: Annette DewSource:News Limited

Mr Gorry said he had considered travelling to India to track his daughter down but realised the encounter could land him in jail and ultimately keep him away f-rom all three of his children.

“I know she’s in Delhi, India but if I just rock up at her school they are going to see me as a stalker or someone wanting to kidnap her and I’ll find myself in a foreign jail with my two young boys and (new) wife at home,” he said.

Mr Gorry said all of his attempts to contact Alice through phone calls, social media and emails had fallen flat.

A Department of Human Services spokeswoman said international child custody disputes and related child support payments were a matter for the Department of Social Services, which did not respond to questions f-rom news.com.au.

Mr Gorry said the Australian government “doesn’t care” about his plight to have contact with his daughter, or other cases like his.

“In India children can be married off at seven or eights years of age ... our government needs to make sure it’s protecting our citizens in the same way it does with our interests in uranium and mining,” he said.

Mr Gorry said he wanted laws introduced that better protected Australian children embroiled in international child custody disputes.

International parental child abduction is not a criminal offence in Australia, with the exception of cases whe-re a court order restricting travel is already in place.

Once an Australian child is on foreign soil, there’s not much anyone can do under current Australian laws to bring them home unless the country is a signatory to The Hague Convention — which many are not.

That means one parent can simply book a flight for their child to another non-signatory country under the guise of a holiday or similar and never return to Australia, with no legal repercussions.

A government recovery mission will not be declared, a search party will not be launched and c-harges will not be laid against the person who took the child in the first place.

But Mr Gorry said he will never give up searching for his little girl.

He leaves messages for on a Facebook page he set up in her name, in the hope she will one day see them.

“I think I probably will see Alice again because curiosity is always there among children,” he said.

“That’s one of the reasons I did the Facebook page because I think, wrongly or rightly, it will give her visibility and if I die (before we meet again) she’ll be able to look back and say ‘he did care’ and ‘he did want to find out about me’.”