Hi everyone. Yes. I am back in the UK now, but I was detained briefly at passport control despite handing over a letter signed by the delegada de PF in the airport itself - my lawyer and I had gone directly to the federal police to make sure there would be no problems, but it seems that no matter how much you try to mitigate, it still doesn't work. The guys on the PF desk immediately after passport control just laughed and joked along the lines of 'this is Brazil, unfortunately', blah blah blah as they typed my authorisation to fly into the computer. After stamping my passport, one of them came back and said, "it's just child support - it's nothing." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry and resisted telling him the whole story. I still haven't seen Rebeca. Her mother keeps saying she doesn't want to see me, but it is the opinion of my lawyer and everyone else who's met Mara that Rebeca hasn't even been told that I'm looking for her and that she's been brainwashed by a dangerously mentally ill and manipulative mother.
I managed, by some miracle or fluke, to speak to my former father-in-law, Milton Pessoa Rezende, on the phone while I was there, and also to various former neighbours of Mara, as well as to the priest who married us and who knows the family and an interesting picture is emerging.