Southampton Teacher Back In Prison

30 September 2013, 13:15

A Southampton teacher who refuses to tell his ex-wife where their daughter is living is starting another six month jail term.

Egyptian Tamer Salama removed Elsa from the care of her English mum Naomi Button, while all three were visiting Egypt in December 2011. 

He's already spent twenty one months in prison, for not following High Court orders to reveal where Elsa is.

Ms Button, a thirty nine year-old leadership consultant from Leeds, has been struggling to recover her six year old daughter ever since, said Mr Justice Holman. 

Jailing Salama for contempt, the judge said that the teacher had admitted refusing to obey court orders, imposed in July, which required him to reveal Elsa's whereabouts and bring about her return to this country. 

He described Salama's evidence as ``shifty, evasive and plainly dishonest'' and said it was quite clear he was very bitter about Ms Button and the English legal system. He said:

''I am left in no doubt at all that the father knows a great deal more of the current whereabouts and circumstances of his child than he is willing to reveal.

I am also in no doubt that, if he chose to do so, he could send instructions to Egypt requiring whoever it is who is caring for the child, to now cause her return to England. 

He has not made the slightest attempt to do so.''

Salama from Southampton, has maintained that he is unable to comply with the court orders because his family has closed ranks against him and he only has very limited phone contact with a brother