The Courier Mail: Mother flies out with her children - Runaway father denies link to The Family
From XFamily - Children of God
Mother flies out with her children - Runaway father denies link to The Family
Press » The Courier Mail » 2007-05-05
By Nick Clark
Runaway father Murray Robertson hugged his daughter yesterday, mouthed the words "I love you" through a taxi window and wondered when he would see his children again.
Mr Robertson bid a sad farewell to his three young children in Launceston as they returned with their mother Philippa Yelland to Brisbane.
Bokkie, 10, Matilda, 9, and Barney, 7, were reunited with their mother on Thursday night after she made a nationwide appeal for their return.
Mr Robertson and the children had been camping in Tasmania for six weeks after they disappeared from his NSW Blue Mountains home after an access visit on March 17. Australian Federal Police located them in Launceston on Thursday and the children returned home yesterday.
"As Tilly was walking to the taxi I gave her a hug and her mother took her arm and pulled her away," he said.
"I talked to her about her pet mouse, Jakk Jakk Dash. I mouthed goodbye `I love you' through the window to Bokkie and Barney."
He said that he had no idea what his future contact with the children would be or what his immediate future held.
Also yesterday, Mr Robertson denied he had close links with the religious group The Family, also known as the Children of God.
The children flew out with Ms Yelland and Uniting Church minister David Millikan, who also is working for Channel 7's Today Tonight.
Dr Millikan is known as a "cult buster" because of exposes of religious groups.
Mr Robertson said Dr Millikan had introduced him to The Family in 1994 about the time Mr Robertson met Ms Yelland.
He questioned Dr Millikan's role in the custody battle.
"I cannot understand why David is here," he said.
Mr Robertson said the children were not members of The Family religious movement and that he had not stayed with any members of the movement while in Tasmania.
"I am friends with them but that is not links to a sect," he said.
Mr Robertson is not expected to face charges for taking the children.
Ms Yelland said after arriving in Launceston on Thursday night that she did not want her former husband to be punished.
In the early 1990s, officials from the NSW and Victorian Departments of Children's Safety removed 150 children from members of The Family.
