Relatives of an Irish couple who brought their nine-year-old grandson back from America to Co Cork against the wishes of his mother yesterday insisted the couple acted only after repeated pleas from the boy to return to Ireland.
Mrs Margaret Tennant said her sister, Ms Ethel Blake, and her husband, Timothy, had gone to America to bring back the young boy after he repeatedly told them in phonecalls he wanted to return to Cobh. "His grandmother used to ring him every second night and he'd say 'Nan, I want to be with ye ... will ye come over and take me back home?' The child was not happy there," she said.
Mrs Tennant told Cork 96FM that the boy had lived with his grandparents in Cork for the first 4½ years of his life after his mother, Serena Benwell, went to America. He went to the US when she asked them to bring him out five years ago. "I've seen him on Sunday, on Monday and again yesterday. I asked him was he happy to be back with his grandparents and he said 'Yes, I love them'," she said.
The boy has five siblings in the US but Mrs Tennant said he was never reared with his brothers and sisters and was much closer to his grandparents.
Ms Benwell was uncontactable at her home at Winthrop Harbour, Illinois, yesterday. Last week, she told the Chicago Tribune her parents were angry the boy had taken his adoptive father's name and had a military style haircut like her husband, John, who serves in the US Navy.
Police Chief Joel Brumlik told the paper a judge had issued arrest warrants for the grandparents for the aggravated kidnapping of their grandson and had set bail in the event of their arrest at $2 million (€1.7 million). But yesterday the FBI in Chicago said no warrants had been issued for the Blakes and the case was a matter for the US State Department.
A Garda spokesman said they had received no further communication since US police contacted them at the weekend through Interpol to establish the boy's whereabouts.
Solicitor for the Blakes, Mr Don Ryan yesterday suggested the matter would be dealt with through the family law courts.
