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A MAN FROM Northern Ireland has said he is in the middle of a transatlantic legal battle to be reunited with his son, three years after he went missing with his mother while on holiday.
John Hopkins from Carrickfergus, near Belfast, told the Ryan Tubridy Show he met his American wife Jackie online in 2001.
After about a year he went to meet her in Wisconsin. They married in Las Vegas in 2003 and their son Cody was born in September of that year.
They lived in the US for a few years before moving to Northern Ireland after John’s mother had a couple of strokes.
“She wasn’t too well so we came back here and just ended up settling here. We stayed here for nearly seven years.”
John said his wife was getting homesick so he surprised her by booking a two-week holiday to Wisconsin for her and Cody to visit relatives in July 2013.
John said they spoke every day and said they loved each other. When he went to the airport on 13 July to pick them up, they never arrived.
“At the end of the two-week period we lost all contact with her, she just vanished.”
John said he contacted US authorities who then went to her house. He said she told them she was getting the next flight home. When this didn’t happen, he contacted the authorities again. They went back to her house, but she and Cody were gone.
We were trying to find out where she was and nobody seemed to know. None of her family would say where she was.
John said he had no idea where they were until he got a phone call from US authorities earlier this month to tell him his wife had died and Cody was under the care of child protection services in Tennessee.
‘I still love her’
When asked how it felt to hear his wife had died, he told Tubridy: “It was like a kick in the stomach. I still loved her. I still love her. I was just still angry at what she had done, but I never had any hatred for her at all. I just wanted them both home.”
He said his wife, who had been using a fake name in the US, died of a massive heart attack.
One of her relatives is trying to claim custody of Cody.
All I want to do is just be there for him and hug him and love him and console him. I can’t even do that, they won’t even let me do that.
I never touched his room at all, I couldn’t even open his door for a year. I couldn’t even walk into the room after it all happened.
Cody was nine years old when John last saw him. He will turn 13 in September.
John said he is currently waiting for a court date for the custody hearing, and is hopeful he will be reunited with his son.
“It’s an absolute nightmare at the minute,” he added.
They should be hung drawn and quartered for making me use that pesky messenger app!
Did you read the terms for having that messenger app.
Aw, you ok hun?
@Alan, after checking out your link I feel great having always declined facebook’s incessant offer of the messenger app. That is some scary schizz. I certainly would have blindly accepted the terms and conditions
Thx for posting that
How is it even legal what they are
Doing..deleted.
The way I see it, if people want me they can text me or call and I can pick up my Facebook message on the laptop
If you read t+c’s of the journal the app can view and delete contents on your sd card. Why?
Thanks for that link Alan, have just deleted it from my phone!
After looking at Alans’s link I thought what a load of old nonsense.
The author is clearly pretty clueless about app permissions on android.
Why don’t you check the permissions of any other messaging app you have on android, they all have pretty much the same.
This is just the standard android permissions written to be as scary as possible.
Check out google hangouts now standard on android, not only does it have all these permissions but it can access your location at any time and read and edit your calendar at any time Gasp!
Just more ant-facebook ain’t I cool hipster nonsense.
If you are worried about Facebook and your privacy
Do not be on Facebook
sticking your ass in the air
like you just don’t care
You fine sir,deserve a medal
Like
Facebook is worth about $200 billion all thanks to the data you give them. they profit from data on users.
Are people “liking” this as a joke?
watch “terms and conditions apply” on Netflix. It will open your eyes.
seen it, recommend everyone sees it, though it confirmed what i’ve always known. planned obsolescence docu is another interesting one.
In those T&Cs posted by the Huffington post, what is meant by a malicious app may do this without your permission? Is it talking about the messenger app or what?
No it’s not talking about the facebook app.
They are standard permissions that any app can ask for.
If you install some dodgy app from somewhere and it asks for those permissions it can do dodgy things and record audio and video all the time.
The facebook app asks to record audio and take pictures so it can support its voice message and picture and video sending abilities.
Also, android users check this out….. Open google (assuming your signed in) click account > account history > places you’ve been.
You can select each date and it will show you exactly where you were etc. Why….? well each time you enable location for maps apps etc…. in the settings menu > Location > On… you will see the message below flash up. Agree or disagree….. always disagree.
Location Consent !
Allow googles location service to collect anonymous location data. Some data may be stored on your device. Collection may occur even when no apps are running.
these people are delusional if they think they’re gonna get any $ of that sociopath Zuckerberg
You’d think Facebook would have registered fbclaim.com along with 20,000 intelligible variations for just such an occasion.
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