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Home / Lifestyle

Mother offers £6k reward to find tot who was taken to Europe by ex-wife and her sperm donor

Daily Mail
2 Dec, 2016 08:45 PM6 mins to read

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Tasha Brown has today offered a £6,000 reward for any information which leads to her daughter's return. Photo / Facebook

Tasha Brown has today offered a £6,000 reward for any information which leads to her daughter's return. Photo / Facebook

A mother has offered £6000 to be reunited with her daughter after she was taken by her wife who ran away with the couple's sperm donor.

Tasha Brown's wife Lauren Etchells, originally from South Shields, fled from their home on Vancouver Island in Canada to Europe with the couple's child and the sperm donor of their second baby in May this year.

She has not stopped searching for her girl and has launched an international Facebook Group called 'Where in the World is Kaydance?' and a Go Fund Me page to raise awareness of her plight in finding her two-year-old, Kaydance Etchells.

Tasha has today offered a £6000 reward for any information which leads to her daughter's return after an international arrest warrant was issued for Miss Etchells.

In her most recent Facebook video, Lauren said: "I love you and miss you my sweetheart Kaydance. All I want is to be reunited with you.

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"Just know that Mama T loves you and I miss you. I will never stop looking for you my darling. I hope that soon you will be returned home."

Kaydance was born through the aid of a sperm donor, with Lauren giving birth to her.

Both Tasha and Lauren, 31, had been together for nine years and were named on the birth certificate as Kaydance's parents.

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To enable Tasha to work at a private international school in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E), she successfully applied to a Canadian Court in March 2015 for her name to be removed from Kaydance's birth certificate.

This is because homosexuality is illegal in the U.A.E, and the lesbian couple would not have been able to enter the country with the two women named as parents.

Tasha, a Canadian national, said: "The removal of my name from the birth certificate essentially stripped me of my parental rights. Little did I realise, this one action would haunt me in the near future, but at that time, I completely trusted my wife."

Tasha's relationship broke down with Lauren following a visit from the couple's second sperm donor and Lauren's best friend, Marco van der Merwe in July 2015.

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The couple had initially planned to extend their family with Mr van der Merwe.

Tasha said: "Lauren informed me that she would be doing the artificial insemination herself.

"I was crushed with this news, but ignored my emotions, since the main goal was to provide Kaydance with a sibling, and timing was everything.

"Lauren, Marco and Kaydance spent that weekend at her parents' house, and then returned to our family home in Nanaimo.

"Upon their return, things were 'off' between Lauren and I. Things were different, but I ignored the red flags being waved in front of my eyes.

"By the end of July 2015 the fractures in our relationship could not be ignored anymore, so Lauren and I agreed to separate."

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Tasha, 43, cancelled her teaching contract in the U.A.E, and asked Lauren to put her name back on Kaydance's birth certificate, but Lauren refused.

Tasha said: "Lauren told me that she wanted the freedom to travel without having to have my permission to take Kaydance out of Canada.

"When I asked Lauren what her short term plans where, she told me she didn't know. I suspected she was going to leave Canada, but then my fears were confirmed - I found out that Lauren bought one way tickets to Qatar, and planned to leave Canada with Kaydance on September 5, 2015 without my knowledge or consent.

"I immediately got a lawyer, and thus began the most emotional journey imaginable."

In August 2015 a judge issued an order that allowed Tasha to visit Kaydance.

The judge also ordered that Lauren surrender her and Kaydance's passports, and not leave Vancouver Island, Canada. Lauren was also ordered not to apply for a Canadian passport for Kaydance.

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Tasha said: "My intent was not, and never has been, to take Kaydance away from Lauren. All I wanted was the passports surrendered to ensure that Lauren would not flee with Kaydance."

In September 2015 Lauren got engaged to Marco and became pregnant. She had a boy with Marco in April this year called Marcus.

Unbeknown to Tasha, Lauren had applied for a Canadian passport for Kaydance, against the court order and had gained permission to renew her own British passport.

The passports were allegedly used by Lauren to flee the country with Kaydance, Marco, Marcus and Kaydance on May 8, 2016 and Tasha found a note on May 16 from Lauren
confirming this.

It was only six days after Kaydance had been taken that Tasha found out, when Lauren did not drop off the tot for the scheduled visit.

In an email to The Times, in which Miss Etchells refused to give any details which would disclose her whereabouts, she tried to explain her decision to go on the run.

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She said that Mr Van der Merwe had agreed to become a donor for her second child.

"This whole case has been about gay rights and not about what is good for my child," she said.

"At some point the system needs to look at the straight facts and see that Kaydance is better off with me instead of getting blinded and caught up in political correctness and bureaucracy.

"Breaking up her family, separating her from her mother and brother and the man she knows as her father is going to do far more psychological damage to her than growing up not knowing... Miss Brown."

Mr Van der Merwe said in October that it was false to suggest he had agreed to be a 'sperm donor' and that Ms Etchells has stopped communication between the pair.

A Supreme Court Judge in Canada reinstated Tasha's parentage on May 24 to once again recognise her as Kaydance's parent.

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Ever since, Tasha has been campaigning to be reunited with her daughter with the help of police officers.

There have been reports of Lauren travelling in England, Europe and the Middle East.

Tasha urges anyone who has information on Kaydance's whereabouts to contact the police on 101.

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