A St Agnes author has been celebrated at the Westcountry Women Awards for her work in the field of mothers fleeing abusive relationships with their children.  

Jan Ford, author of The Loving Abductor, took the Phoenix Award, which identifies a person who has risen from the ashes and been resilient, working hard to help change lives, communities and the economy for the better. 

Jan’s work is rooted in her own experience of domestic abuse, which goes back 20 years. 

A divorcee with two sons, Jan remarried a Frenchman, had a third son and made her home in the south of France. When the marriage broke down, Jan fled and returned to her Cornish homeland with the boys.  

But far from being safe, she found herself subject to The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction and facing criminal consequences for crossing international borders.  

“I had to appear at the High Court in London, whereby the laws of the Hague Convention ruled we had no choice but to return to the country where we were ‘habitually resident’,” she explains.  

“I will never forget my feelings of sheer terror and fear at the unspeakable prospect of not only being sent back to a foreign country but, for all intents and purposes, straight back into the hands of our abuser.” 

While the high court applied protective measures to safeguard the forced return of Jan and her youngest son, French police informed her they could not enforce them. “However, they stressed our lives were in immediate danger, and we needed to protect ourselves by escaping the country,” she says. 

Jan and her son crossed the border into Spain. Five months later, the family court in Montpellier awarded her custody of her youngest son and they were free to return to Cornwall, where she faced yet another challenge.  

“Homeless and destitute, our only possessions were the clothes in which we were standing. 

“One battle was over, but another was beginning; the battle to rebuild our lives while learning to live with the emotional wounds of our trauma.” 

Jan wrote and published her book The Loving Abductor: When Protecting Your Child is Against the Law to tell her story in the hope of informing and inspiring others enduring similar ordeals. It reached number 27 in the Amazon bestsellers list of women’s biographies and memoirs, in the company of Michelle Obama and Lily Allen.  

She has also become a point of contact for “Hagued” mothers worldwide. “They contacted me directly, desperate for help from someone who understood the perils of their situation. I needed to find a way to bring these women together so they could meet others experiencing the same ordeal and find comfort in the fact that they were no longer alone.” 

Jan subsequently created the Loving Abductors private Facebook group, and also supports mothers through one-to-one chats and video calls.  

Of her win, she said: “I’m still quite overwhelmed and humbled. It’s for all the protective mothers in the world, who do not get the validation they should. The ripple effect is positive for them – it means they are actually being heard.” 

The West Country Women Awards took place at the Crowne Plaza in Plymouth. More than 320 guests, finalists and sponsors from all across the South West attended to celebrate winners across 16 categories, recognising women in all walks of life including arts and culture, sport, sustainability and more. 

Hosts for the evening were former Westcountry News presenter Alexis Bowater OBE and Tess Stuber, co-founders of the awards, with swimmer Sharron Davies MBE as surprise guest.