Mother wins in international custody battle

EUGENE, Ore. – A Canadian mother wins an Oregon custody battle. Now, she tells us, her two years of torture are over.  

A Lane County judge ruled in Lisa Kirkman's favor Friday, ordering her 12-year-old son back to Canada after years of bureaucratic red tape.

Kirkman tells us her son should have been returned within days after he went to Oregon for vacation. Instead, that bureaucratic red tape turned those days into months and then years, Kirkman said. During the wait Kirkman engaged in a public fight to get her son back to Canada, talking to network television and lobbying lawmakers, even after Noah said he didn't want to go back.

Now, 12-year-old Noah Kirkman will leave a Lane County foster care to live with his grandparents in Canada. It's a victory for his mother, who we talked to in Calgary Sunday by Skype.

"I will be holding my breath until I actually have him home in my arms," Kirkland said.  

Kirkland said she took Noah to Lane County in 2008, leaving him with his stepfather for a summer vacation. A judge ruled she abandoned him.

"I think if I were to leave my son in Oregon," Kirkland said, "I would have left all his stuff with him."

Shuffled between four foster homes and three schools, Noah could only talk with his mother every two weeks for 15 minutes. All of the calls were supervised.

"We would have been able to talk more freely if he were in jail, believe it or not," Kirkland said.

Noah finally settled in a foster home outside of Eugene, and initially told the judge that he wanted to stay in Oregon. (See the article from KATU's sister station in Eugene, "Judge orders boy to Canada.")
      
"Any type of change, especially a major change like that really terrifies him," Kirkman explained. But, "once he was told he was going home, he thought he was going home right then and there ... and he was so happy."

Kirkman has a past with Canadian child services, for issues ranging from discipline to growing marijuana. She is now going through court-ordered therapy, and hopes once Noah is back in Canada they will become a family again.
   
"It'll be the happiest day of my life, next to the day he was born," she said.

The last time Kirkman saw her son was July 2009. Staff at Oregon's Department of Human Services cannot comment on juvenile cases, but during testimony a DHS attorney said returning Noah to his homeland would be in the best interest of the child.