Wherever you go, I'm searching Someone must know, I'm searching Wherever you are, I'm searching, No journey's too far, I'm searching. . . Cries are heard across the world - Set her free! Come home to me. . .
Deirdre's song, written and sung by Fiona Kennedy, is ringing out across the Internet today. Even though the little girl it was written about, Deirdre Crowley, is dead. All that is left is a mother's love, shock and torment - and www.deirdrecrowley.com
When Christine O'Sullivan got married, when she gave birth to Deirdre and when that marriage broke down, she never suspected the searching that lay ahead. Nothing about her husband, Christopher Crowley's behaviour ever made her think that he was a child abductor. . . or worse. When I interviewed her in January this year, her one comfort was that she knew that Christopher would never hurt his daughter.
"Nobody ever suspected [Christopher] was capable of violence," says Father Aquinas Duffy, who runs a website, missinginireland.com, and is close to Christine. "That's why it's so shocking. Christine used to say, `Christopher loves Deirdre so much that he could never harm her'. No one ever, ever though that child would come to harm."
Yet it seems now that Christopher was consumed by an overwhelming jealousy and hatred. While he may have loved his daughter, he hated her mother more.
For 20 months, it seemed the worst punishment Christopher could offer Christine was to deprive her of her daughter's presence. Even still, Christine refused openly to criticise her ex-husband.
She was aware that parents who abduct their own children may poison their minds against the absent parent, telling them their absent parent didn't love them anymore.
But she didn't think Deirdre's father would do such a thing. Her greatest fear was that Deirdre would be told that her mother was dead.
"It's a small world but it doesn't feel like it when your child is missing," Christine said. She was convinced that Christopher had taken Deirdre to Europe to start a new life. The very worst harm that would come to Deirdre, Christine then believed, was that Deirdre would be desperately missing her mother and extended maternal family.
Her greatest hope was that Deirdre, as she reached school age, would tell somebody, somewhere about her early childhood in Ireland. This confidant - a teacher, friend or baby-sitter - would see Deirdre's picture on a website, put two-and-two together and call Interpol.
Christine never thought that Deirdre could be as close as Clonmel. After all, so many pictures of Deirdre were circulated how could she be in the Republic without anyone knowing? How could her father keep her hidden from the world? The world doesn't seem so small anymore.
For a few brief, golden moments on Thursday, Christine appears to have thought that she and Deirdre would be reunited. "I thought I was going to be holding her in my arms this evening and cuddling her and telling her how much I missed her and telling her how hard I worked to try to find her."
What went wrong? As one leading clinical psychologist specialising in child abuse told The Irish Times yesterday: "What seems to have gone wrong is that when the father was granted access, the child was not deemed to be at risk. Yet the mental state of the father was obsessive, considering the way he planned the abduction and premeditated the killing, which is evident from the fact he had a gun.
"In the courts today, when we look at risk, we look at the relationship and love between father and daughter. So a psychiatric assessment was not done."
A psychiatric assessment might have saved Deirdre's life, this particular psychologist believes.
But would it? Christopher was convincingly trustworthy. For at least six months, however, he had been orchestrating the modus operandi that would enable him to exist for the next 20 months without credit cards or bank accounts.
Christine trusted Christopher. So when he called to take Deirdre for the weekend on the morning of December 4th, she kissed her daughter goodbye knowing she would see her soon again. Just as she always had before.
On Christmas Eve, 1999, Christopher's car was found cleared out at the Talbot Hotel in Wexford, but after that the trail was cold. This complete lack of evidence and contact with family is highly unusual in cases of parental abduction, according to gardai.
Also unusual in such cases was Christine's trusting attitude to her former spouse. Usually, parents who kill have been in custody battles where sporadic access got less and less, particularly as ex-spouses met new partners. In this case, the couple had formed a co-parenting relationship without rancour, as far as Christine was aware.
Meanwhile, Christopher enjoyed a reputation as - in Christine's words - "a fine decent character. . . a quiet, hardworking, willing, salt-of-the-earth great guy".
No one saw the violence beneath the surface. What tipped him over the edge? Could it be that he was starting to feel hunted more intensely than before?
Christine last saw her daughter alive when Deirdre was a 4-1/2 -year-old. Websites featuring Deirdre and media appeals became Christine's only connections. This activity intensified as Christine marked Deirdre's sixth birthday two weeks ago with presents that would remain unopened and a poignant happy birthday message on Deirdre's website. A UK magazine, Take A Break, had been running a regular feature on Deirdre's disappearance. Sightings in the UK were being reported.
The same leading clinical psychologist, who has worked with violent offenders who abuse children, says: "When people are pushed and cornered they can react in extreme ways. Wherever there is a case like this, there is likely to be depression or some form of mental illness. In any tug-of-love, you have no idea what separation and loss will do to someone."
Marriages are breaking down every day. The pain of adult relationships is affecting children as never before. Children are being abducted and child homicide by relatives now comprises a cruelly significant portion of total homicides. What is happening in society that it has come to this?
Clinical psychologist Ms Marie Murray said she would be ethically unable and personally unwilling to discuss the specifics of any case, even one in which she had no professional involvement. However, she did suggest that at any time when there is a tragedy which reminds us of the current pressures to which modern families are subjected, that it is timely for us to examine the support systems which are provided for individuals and for families.
WE need to ask why? What supports are in place to help people in their relationships, particularly marital relationships, before they crumble rather than after the event?
Who supports parents individually as they go through the process of separation and divorce and who ensures the welfare of their children?
"In this context there is not just a need for marital therapy but because the demise of a marriage opens many old wounds and vulnerabilities in individuals, a mechanism needs to be automatically in place to help people examine their own past and present psychological status," she says.
"In instances of clear psychiatric disorder in one or other parent, special assistance is necessary for everyone. Too often the psychiatric patient can become stigmatised. Having a psychiatric disorder doesn't invalidate their role as a parent. So often the investment in health services is token and there is a need for major investment in mental health education and preventative services in the community."
Why are there insufficient reviews of custody and access arrangements and why are these pejorative terms still used which anger and demean parents?
"Speaking to parents about how they spend time with their children, when and where is an entirely different psychological process. We need a more transparent court system that is nurturing of both parents rather than appearing to be adversarial and punitive to one or other in instances of conflict," Ms Murray believes.
We also need to ask: where children are potentially at risk, why are the rights of the parents so often prioritised above the needs of the child? "There are few mental health professionals who, in the course of their career, have not witnessed the distress of children who have been mandated to visit a parent in whose company they did not want to be," says Ms Murray.
"We need to examine the degree to which we, as a society, have sent out a message about relationships being temporary arrangements and children being of secondary importance or `resilient' in the face of adults changing partners regularly. If we know the optimal emotional conditions for child rearing, the least we as a society should do is to pay attention to the research and provide the appropriate structures to ensure the welfare of our children."
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