Letters To Louis: The ‘Batphone’ lives on in Dubai City.
Entry No:4
As a child growing up in 70’s Britain, one of the most popular shows I watched was Batman and Robin. Every week, the citizens of Gotham would be saved by the heroic deeds of this masked duo. Amongst the many iconic images associated with Batman, the ‘pillarbox’ red telephone is one that many will fans will remember being used by the fictional Commissioner Gordon to call Batman when he needed a ‘job done.
For those readers too young too remember, Gotham City was plagued by criminals. It was over-run by mafia style crime syndicates who had a stranglehold on the city’s police department. Gotham’s police force was riddled with corruption and bribery. When things got really tough, a desperate Commissioner Gordon would get on the Batphone to Batman.
I think everyone would agree that the mythical police commissioner could not have succeeded without the Cape Crusader. Batman and the Commissioner had a ‘special relationship’ they both shared a vision to rid Gotham of this plague. The ‘red phone’ performed a function beyond that of a transmission device, it cemented the bond they had with each other.
But in the non-fictional world, collusive relationships between police and private citizens fall squarely into the realms of bribery and corruption. In a civil society, access to justice cannot be contingent on the ability to pay or dependent on one’s ‘special connections’ with the local boys in blue. A word to one’s friends in the police force, in extreme cases, can result in the most appalling acts of abuse of power, damage public trust and give rise to mis-carraiges of justice.
When my marriage broke down shortly after the birth of our son Louis Lachaux in 2010, I could not have predicted the legal tsunami that my then husband Bruno Lachaux was about to unleash on me aided and abetted by officers in the Dubai police department.
We married in London in 2010, and I left the UK to join my husband to settle with him in Dubai. He was an aerospace engineer and had been based in Dubai for some years. He loved it there, it was tax-free, plenty of cheap migrant labour, his employment package was extremely generous, including a poolside residence, domestic maids which could be employed on less than a dollar a day and year round sunshine. It was an expat’s paradise and one that he relished.
The premature birth of our son Louis triggered the onset of domestic abuse. In the months to follow, I experienced domestic abuse in all its forms — emotional, being spied upon, financial abuse to refusing me birth control. When it became patently obvious that our relationship was beyond repair and I wanted to return home to England– he resorted to threats to have me arrested by the Dubai police and have our son removed from my care.
He would take great pride in telling me about his high placed contacts in the Dubai police. He threatened to use his ‘police friends’ to hunt me down if I ever left with Louis. He would constantly remind me that the UAE was an Islamic country and the laws were favourable to men.
As I came to experience in the four years that he had me trapped in Dubai, these were not ‘empty’ threats and he had his own ‘hotline’ to the Dubai police.
Tax–free status wasn’t the only benefit enjoyed by my husband. He had also collected a few influential friends along the way. These friends never came to the house for dinner, we never socialised with them but they were indeed friends with very ‘special benefits’.
Towards the end of our short-lived unhappy marriage, I left Dubai for a brief trip to London in April 2011. This departure was prompted by a rapid deterioration in our marriage following months of domestic abuse. My husband had attacked me with a kitchen knife in a vicious assault in January 2011. I reported this (and many other incidents) to the police. I provided medical evidence but as prophesised by my husband, the police refused to believe me — ‘didn’t I know that disobeying a husband was a crime in the UAE’, husbands are allowed to physically abuse their wives –their advice ‘kiss and make up’ UAE style. And so I returned to our home, defeated, bruised, bewildered and trapped.
I had no money, I was not permitted to work, the house was not in my name, I had no rights of occupation and sharia law forbid me to disobey him. The police’s refusal to investigate my complaint rendered his control over me complete and made me increasingly fear for my safety and that of Louis’. However, at time of the assault, fearful as I was, I could not leave Dubai without Louis. Bruno had hidden our son’s passport months earlier to prevent me from leaving Dubai with our child. According to UAE sharia law (Article (149) and (157) of the UAE Civil Status Act) husbands have the right to possession of family documents and permission to take one’s child out of Dubai required spousal consent.
This was his ‘nuclear’ weapon in his strategy to control and contain me. Everything, it seemed (and as I was to discover much later) had been planned with military precision.
And so, it was, on the 17 April 2011, I found myself once again, in Bur Dubai police station forced to seek the help of the UAE police because Bruno had changed the locks on our home. He was on a business trip to Turkey and had his parents fly to Dubai from their home in Toulouse, France specifically to hide Louis from me.
I was effectively trapped in the country with no passport for Louis and could not expect any help from the British Embassy.
The police finally located Louis and he was was eventually handed over to me later that evening. Those six hours in the police station were a nightmare.
The police were unsympathetic to my plight and not for the first time was I met with derision, misogyny and the open racism that Gulf Arabs reserve for migrant labourers — they could not comprehend someone of my colour could possible be BRITISH.
This was to be my first encounter with Office Mousa Mohammed. An encounter which was to have have terrible ramifications for me a year later. Officer Mousa, was male, and an Arab man at that. He was incensed at the decision to return my son to me. He took it on himself (presumably on the instructions of my husband) to demand that I attend the police station so that my husband could see his son. When I refused to give in to his demands, he proceeded to threaten me further, a threat which was promptly followed by an email from Bruno warning me that Officer Mousa would avail his services at the Sharia court when required to do so.
During the four years I was trapped — Bruno had me arrested several times.
Each time, I was handcuffed, detained, often without lawyers and falsely charged with crimes ranging from “swearing at my husband’ to defamation. My passport was removed and I faced a trial for kidnapping my own son.
In August 2012, without my knowledge, a Sharia court granted my French Catholic husband a divorce and custody of our three year old son Louis. I was in hiding at that time. It had been a constant mental and physical battle to survive. Louis and I moved sixteen times, each time, a new environment, new and sometimes unsuitable flatmates. We had to adopt new identities to stay hidden from the police and my husband. We slept on floors, make shift mattresses, and sometimes, if we were lucky a double bed. My family back home in Britain, did what they could making sure that enough money was sent so that Louis could be fed, and have as normal and happy life, given the dire circumstances.
The Sharia court held that I had been negligent and immoral on the basis of evidence provided by my husband — he furnished the court with a verbal testimony and written documentation which illustrated all the crimes I had committed as a woman and as a mother. The litany of ‘crimes’ included, causing Louis to have eczema, at 44 years of age I was labelled as a raging clubber ‘clubbing every night and depriving my baby of being breastfed’ (this is despite giving premature birth via a caesarean section making it slightly difficult for me to go out clubbing every night) The evidence of my crime was my husband’s testimony and his valuable ‘loot’ gained from his spying activities.
As required under Sharia law, two male witnesses were required to ‘seal the deal’ and his annhilation of my character would be complete. The ‘batphone’ rang and Captain Ali Morad appeared in court as my husband’s ‘friend’ and testifed that I was deemed unfit to care for my son.
Officer Mousa Mohammed, as predicted by my husband had also availed himself of the opportunity to ensure that the final grenade of damaging evidence was duly delivered.
Neither officers knew me, let alone be able to attest to the the state of our marriage. Captain Morad, was present on the night that Louis was handed back to me. But instead of exercising fairness and impartiality, as an officer of the law, he assumed the role of a ‘marital relationship expert’. The testimonies by these Dubai police officers sealed my fate and had the most devastating life long consequences for both Louis and me. This ‘Taliban’ style trial condemned us both to a lifetime of separation and heartache.
After Louis was taken, Bruno continued to use the Dubai police as his private army. Such was his control and influence over the local police, it seemed that he had the Dubai police on permanent speed dial.
He even had the tumerity to threaten the British Vice Consul on one occasion because the Consul was trying to prevent me from being arrested at the court.
The UAE’s judicial system has been roundly criticised for its lack of transparency and its treatment of women. It continues to be criticised for denying equal access to women like myself.
But when the country’s legal system is open to abuse by individuals who have the local police on speed-dial -innocent children like my son Louis will suffer the most inhumane injustice.
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