Ellie Yarrow-Sanders: Basildon mum wins custody battle for son

A MUM who fled the country with her son during a custody fight has won the battle for him to live with her and will tell her story on TV.

Ellie Yarrow-Sanders, from Basildon, will appear on a Channel 4 show, speaking for the first time since winning custody earlier this year.

In 2018, Miss Yarrow-Sanders vanished mid-way through a high court hearing over custody her three-year-old son.

Her disappearance led the judge to lift reporting restrictions on the case and make an appeal on social media for her to come home.

Eight months after her disappearance, Miss Yarrow-Sanders returned and the case resumed in private.

Following a 16-month fight in the family court – which cannot be detailed for legal reasons – the judge Mr Justice Williams ruled that her son, now six, can live with her, and spend time with his father.

Speaking to Channel 4’s Dispatches, Miss Yarrow-Sanders shared how her actions came from “desperation”.

In response to people criticising her for leaving the country, Miss Yarrow-Sanders said she wanted “transparency” with the courts.

She said: “It was just desperation really. A lawyer that I had representing me said, ‘’If we cannot come to an agreement and co-parent, it will lead to care proceedings, and you will lose him.

“At the time I genuinely believed he was going to be taken – and that was the end, I would say, of my rational thinking.”

The search for Miss Yarrow-Sanders went on in private for five months from July to December 2018, but in making a public appeal, the judge made her son a ward of the court.

Dad, Patrick Sheridan encouraged her to return home and have faith in the court process.

Miss Yarrow-Sanders added: “I have no objections to any of my evidence being shown to the world. Kids Google themselves, don’t they? Kids Google people that they know. You Google my name and I’m a child abductor. Why should I not be allowed to set the record straight? The overwhelming obstruction is the lack of transparency.”