Canadian judge struggles with kidnapping sentence

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec 2 (Reuters) The judge sentencing a French woman who fled Canada with her children and sparked a bitter international custody battle said the true victims in the case were the youngsters.

Judge Marvyn Koenigsberg said yesterday she believes Nathalie Gettliffe did not intend to remain in France permanently when she kidnapped her children, but that did not diminish the harm the case had caused.

Gettliffe fled to France with the children in 2001 after a Canadian divorce court rejected her request to take them there for 10 months. The court had ruled that would violate their father's right to have access to them.

The case generated widespread public interest in France with charges that Gettliffe was attempting to protect the children from their father's having joined an evangelical Christian church -- described as cult by her supporters.

The children did not return to Canada until this year after Gettliffe was arrested when she tried to enter Canada and French officials ordered the boy and girl be returned to their father's custody near Vancouver.

''I don't think the greatest harm that happened to the children is not the five years (away), it's that they learned to hate their father,'' Koenigsberg said, admitting she was struggling with how to handle the case.

Gettliffe, 35, a dual Canadian-French citizen, pleaded guilty to a kidnapping charge this month before her trial was scheduled to begin.

Gettliffe'a attorney, Richard Fowler, said that while it was wrong to have kidnapped her children, the case took on a life of its own as public support grew in France to claims she was protecting them from their father's evangelical church.

''I don't think you can lay at the feet of Nathalie Gettliffe all that was said,'' Fowler told the British Columbia court.

Gettliffe's former husband, Scott Grant, was warned his life would be threatened in France if he attempted to see his children there, and he has said that when he first saw his children this year they blamed him for their mother's arrest.

Fowler is asking the court to sentence her to no more than 18 months in prison, and to give her credit for the time she has spent in custody in Canada since her arrest in April.

Prosecutors have asked for a two-year sentence plus three years probation.

Fowler said his proposal was not too lenient, noting that Gettliffe did not have a criminal record before this incident and had suffered because of the publicity surrounding the case.

REUTERS SB RAI1054