Vancouver, Canada - A woman at the center of a bitter international custody case was sentenced to 16 months in prison by a Canadian judge who said Monday she brainwashed her children and misled the French public with lies about her former husband.
Nathalie Gettliffe, who fled to France with her son and daughter in 2001, inflicted psychological abuse on them over a five year period by making them hate their Canadian father, British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Marvyn Koenigsberg said.
"Psychological abuse can be as harmful as physical abuse," the judge told the court in Vancouver.
Gettliffe, a dual Canadian-French citizen, pleaded guilty last month to parental kidnapping. Under the sentence, she will likely spend only six more months in jail because of credit for the time she has already spent in custody since her arrest in April.
Gettliffe's custody case generated wide interest in France, with her supporters saying she was protecting the children from an abusive father and his cult-like evangelical Christian church — allegations the judge said Gettliffe knew were false.
"If she did not directly vilify the children's father publicly then she did not disavow it," Koenigsberg ruled, noting that at one point French officials worried the case might spark civil disobedience.
Gettliffe abducted the children to France after a Canadian divorce court refused to let her take them there for a 10-month visit on the grounds that it would harm their close relationship with their father, Scott Grant, who lives in the Vancouver area.
Koenigsberg said Gettliffe began making allegations against her former husband to avoid the consequences of having broken the law, and then over five years had "effectively brainwashed" the children to break their emotional ties to Grant.
Gettliffe, who last week apologized to the court, sat quietly in the prisoner's box during the sentencing. Grant, who now has custody of the children, was also in court.
"It is a very sad case ... for me it still goes on," Grant said after the hearing, admitting he was still worried Gettliffe might try to abduct the children again after she is released from prison.
Grant said his children, who are now 12 and 11 years old, no longer hate him, but are still confused about the stories they were told about him and why their mother is in prison.
Gettliffe's attorney Richard Fowler said she was relieved the case was over so she "can get on with her life." Gettliffe gave birth while in prison awaiting trial and has a child in France from a husband there.
The judge said she would not object to Gettliffe serving some of her sentence and the post-prison three-year probation period in France.