It has taken years to come to trial and now even that is being delayed. The trial of Filipe Silva, the father who kidnapped his own daughter, Gisele “Ellie” Silva, in 2012 was due to take place this week but has been delayed for “processual reasons”. These are thought to include difficulties involved in setting up video links. Ellie now lives in Ireland with her mother, stepfather and younger siblings.
As her mother Candice has told us on a number of occasions, neither she nor her daughter have any desire to return to Portugal for the hearing, and Ellie’s father has in fact had no contact with his daughter for months.
“He has never even visited her in Ireland,” she told us.
Candice spent seven agonising months not knowing where her daughter was while Silva held the little girl in a flat in a closed condominium in Porto.
PJ police monitored Silva’s movements throughout the months he had Ellie, finally detaining him in February 2013.
Silva’s trial is now scheduled to go forwards on May 21.
Photo: Ellie with her younger sister Olivia pictured in Ireland
