British mother Indea Ford admits abducting own children and taking them to US
Cupcake baker arrested in 2017 and extradited back to the UK in April
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A British mother has pleaded guilty to abduction charges after moving her children to Alaska without informing their father.
Indea Ford, 34, admitted two counts of abducting the young children, aged seven and eight, without appropriate consent on 2 October 2015, when she appeared at Isleworth Crown Court.
The professional cupcake baker, who previously lived in Maidstone, Kent, took her daughters to Sitka after she married an American following the collapse of her previous relationship.
Supported by her parents in court, Ms Ford broke down in tears and spoke only to confirm her particulars and enter the guilty pleas.
Recorder Gibson Grenfell QC said: "It's not an offence one often has to deal with."
Ford and the children's father, both British, separated in 2012. She married local coastguard Kenneth Ford in 2014 and and they also have a toddler together.
Details of the case were made public after the children’s father, a 33-year-old who cannot be named, sought help from the family court to have his children returned to Britain.
Ms Ford, now a permanent resident in the US, was brought back to the UK in April after initially taking legal action to block extradition.
In February, Judge Sharon Gleason ruled against her following a court hearing in Anchorage, Alaska saying that that Ford had lived in the London area before moving to Sitka.
After eight months in supervised house arrest, she flew to Anchorage to surrender.
The two children remain with their stepfather in the United States.
Prosecutors offered no evidence for a further charge of fraud in relation to a passport which she was accused of obtaining a passport fraudulently for her younger daughter as it was being held by her ex-partner.
Addition reporting by PA