An 11-year-old boy has been reunited with his father after spending almost eight months overseas with his mother who took him illegally.
The boy's Waikato-based father James Way has travelled to Zimbabwe to retrieve his son, Nicholas, after winning a court order in a Zimbabwean court to bring the boy back to New Zealand, NZME reports.
Lauren Way, also known as Lauren Smith, 42, took her son from New Zealand in February. A warrant for her arrest was issued in the Hamilton District Court in March, after she failed to appear on an abduction charge.
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Mr Way flew to Zimbabwe to collect his son and returned with the boy on Monday, a police spokesperson said.
The boy was reportedly enrolled in a boarding school near Zimbabwe's capital Harare. It's understood he has been returned to New Zealand without his mother's knowledge of the retrieval operation.
Ms Smith is still wanted by police in New Zealand, but she is believed to still be in Zimbabwe.
Her father Gerald, the former president of the conservative African political party The Rhodesian Front, is based New Zealand, and has reunited with his grandson.
The boy's return was "a bit of a shock," he told NZME.
Newshub.
