When the Gillespie children were snatched by their Malaysian prince father 14 years ago, their mother decided it was too dangerous to try to snatch them back.
When Melissa Hawach was reunited with her kidnapped children, Melbourne mum Jacqueline Pascarl — whose children were kept from her for 14 agonising years — felt mixed emotions.
Although delighted for Melissa, whom she’d helped comfort during her ordeal, Jacqueline, 43, says she also “felt rattled for a while”.
“I questioned whether I, too, should have used mercenaries to try to rescue my children,” she explains.
Jacqueline — whose surname was then Gillespie — made international headlines when her six-year-old daughter Shahirah and nine-year-old son Iddin were kidnapped by their Malaysian prince father, Raja Bahrin.
Bahrin snatched the children during an access visit in 1992 and smuggled them out of the country. Although Jacqueline had legal custody of the children, Australia’s diplomatic efforts to get them back from Malaysia were fruitless.
Jacqueline never gave up the battle and admits she considered paying to have her children “kidnapped” back.
“But my kids were in a royal compound, being guarded 24 hours by gun-toting royal bodyguards,” Jacqueline sighs.
“My children — or some of their relatives — could have been harmed if anyone broke in, and I just couldn’t risk that.”
Finally, in Melbourne last year, Jacqueline was reunited first with her daughter, and later her son, now young adults who sought to be with the mother they’d never forgotten.
“The sun peeked out three-quarters when I saw my daughter in person,” Jacqueline says, her face lighting up at the memory. “And it absolutely glowed as though it was a midsummer day in a cloudless sky when I saw both my children!”
Jacqueline’s new book, Since I Was A Princess, outlines how she managed to get through the terrible years without her children. Though there were times of utter despair when she contemplated suicide, she found enough inner strength to propel her through her darkest moments. The trauma destroyed her second marriage, but she later found happiness with a new husband, Bill Crocaris, to whom she has two more children, Verity, 6, and Lysander, 4.
Jacqueline also immersed herself in international charity work and became an expert on child abduction, establishing The Empty Arms Network to support parents whose children have been kidnapped.
“I have personally been involved in helping 64 children be returned to their parents from all over the world,” she says with pride. “And I always shed a tear of elation when somebody gets their child back. An estimated 30,000 children are kidnapped from Western nations every year. It’s an enormous problem.
“I never advocate counter-abduction, though — that is a personal choice for the parents involved.
“My message to any parent who contacts me is, ‘Always live in hope, you just have to keep going, even when it’s the most difficult thing. I mean, are you going to slash your wrists, crawl into a corner and die — or turn a negative into a positive, and decide you’re going to build as many bridges in your life as you can, in the hope that your children will walk across them one day?
“I have always maintained that I have been a very fortunate person, despite what happened to me. Of course, I had terrible moments of depression and desolation, but I was alive and kicking. I knew my children weren’t dead, at least. And I found a way of channelling my expertise into something to help other people.”
Jacqueline says her daughter Shah, now 21 and living with her mother in Melbourne, and son Iddin, now 24, “are really proud of me and what I’ve been doing over the past few years”.
The fact that she is a former princess, she says, often helped open doors with her international charity work.
“I don’t use it to get a seat at the opera or anything,” she giggles, “but being a former princess of Malaysia has certainly helped me get things done overseas. One time, when I was at a refugee camp in Kosovo for CARE International, the visiting Dutch Prime Minister recognised me, as his wife was reading my first book Once I Was A Princess. He came over and began asking me about the refugees, and later made a generous donation to the camp.”
Jacqueline’s focus is now more on her family life, “though if people seek me out wanting advice, I help, which is what happened with Melissa Hawach. Her solicitor contacted me and asked if I’d contact her and offer solace, which, of course, I was happy to do.
“I didn’t know she was going to try to counter-abduct her girls back. I probably would have advised her against it, but ultimately it’s a personal choice, and, well, it worked for her.”
Jacqueline says she is currently in the throes of writing fiction, both for children and adults.
“And I just want to be there for my children, to help bring out the best in all of them. Being able to walk down the street with all four of my children for the first time, holding hands, is a moment I’ll never forget,” she adds, her voice heavy with emotion.
“Did I ever expect to be this happy again? No, I never thought I’d be this joyous again. But I’d already realised joy can find you in different ways. Having a second family has given me a happiness I hadn’t expected.
“But to be able to have all four children here and see them interact and have a proper life is true fulfilment. I’m enjoying discovering their many wonderful talents.”
Asked how she feels towards her former husband, the prince who kept her from her children for so long, Jacqueline pauses, then says, “I don’t want my children to hate their father, so I won’t say too much about him … I’ve got to move on; we’re going to share grandchildren one day.
“But, obviously he’s not my favourite person in the world!” she adds with a wry smile. “Still, we now have to look ahead.”
Jacqueline says that, growing up in Malaysia, the children were deprived “of ballet classes, piano lessons, and all those extras, musically, artistically, and emotionally,” they’d have had if they’d grown up with her in Melbourne.
“Shah has a great sense of humour, she’s really funny. In the past few months, she has been studying music here in Melbourne, she sings beautifully. She’s just gone back to Malaysia for a holiday, but she’ll be back soon. And Iddin has just returned to Malaysia after scuba diving in the Philippines.
“How my children spend their future is up to them,” she says. “I have to remember, I’m the parent of two adult children, and they can make their own decisions. But thankfully, from now on, our separations will never be forced!
“My life is blissful now,” she continues, flashing her beautiful smile. “With two little ones to raise, it’s also organised chaos on any given day — but I wouldn’t change a thing!”
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