A Cork couple are facing extradition to the United States and possible sentences of up to 30 years if convicted of kidnapping their young grandson from his Chicago home and taking him to Ireland. The boy had lived with them until the age of four.
The child, now aged 11, has been at the centre of court proceedings both here and in the US.
At the High Court yesterday, counsel for the State described as "legitimate and relevant" the application by the US authorities for the extradition of Tim and Ethel Blake, both aged 60, from Cobh, Co Cork, to meet charges alleging the aggravated kidnapping of their then nine-year-old grandson in July 2004.
However, the court also heard that neither the couple's grandson, now back living in the US with his mother, nor his mother - who is the Blakes's daughter - wished to see the couple extradited. The boy's mother had written to the US authorities pleading with them not to prosecute her parents. While she knew they had done wrong, she loved them very much and did not wish them extradited.
The extradition of the Blakes is being sought to meet a charge of aggravated kidnapping, which is "knowingly by deceit" enticing a child under 13 years of age, to go from Illinois to Dublin in July 2004. The child was returned to his mother, who lives in Winthrop Harbour, a suburb of Chicago, in November 2004.
The couple were arrested in September 2005 at their home in Cobh after it was alleged they had enticed the child to go to Dublin with them from his home in Chicago.
Applying for an order for the extradition of the couple, Mary Ellen Ring SC, for the State, said this was a "very emotional" matter arising out of protracted family differences. Such problems were not something that could be taken into account in regard to the extradition application which was both "legitimate and relevant".
Aggravated kidnapping is a felony which carries a minimum sentence of six years in Illinois and a maximum sentence of 30, Mr Justice Michael Peart heard.
In her affidavit, the boy's mother said her parents had visited her in the US in July 2004 and stayed in a hotel nearby. They told her her father was dying and they wanted to spend some time with their grandson. She agreed they could take him out for lunch but asked them to give her their passports.
The mother said she did not know the couple had duplicate passports with them. She had dropped off her son at lunchtime and said she would pick him up at 3pm.
However, when she returned to the hotel at that time, they were not there and after searching for them unsuccessfully, she contacted the police.
She had not given her parents permission to remove the boy from the US and had told them that several times. Her father had said he would rather see his grandson dead that see him become "an American bastard", she said.
Ms Ring, who asked the media not to name the child in question, said he was the youngest of four boys and has a younger half- sister.
He had lived with his grandparents in their Cobh home until he was over four years of age. His biological father was dead and his mother had met a US naval officer and moved to the US in 1997 with a number of her children, where she married.
In 1999, when the Blakes had visited the US with their grandson, his mother had refused to allow him back to Ireland and he remained there, the court was told.
In January 2001, Cork Circuit Court had made the grandson a ward of court and granted Timothy and Ethel Blake joint custody. The court also directed the boy's mother to deliver him back into the care of his grandparents.
In March 2001, the Blakes took proceedings in the US under the Hague Convention for the return of the child to Ireland but their application was turned down.