OFFICE MEMO

J&J LAW OFFICES

TO: Mr. Joshua Matthews/ Jasmine Matthews

FROM: Mrs. Manika Abraham
RE: Missing Daughter

Dear Joshua/ Jasmine, I got married 8 years ago and I have one child from my marriage. Recently,
I separated from my husband due to irreconcilable differences. The Court gave me the custody
of our daughter. Two days ago, my husband took our daughter along with him without my
consent.
Regards Manika Abraham

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

You are Manika Matthews, a 30-year-old young and successful IT professional. While your
career has always been great, you have been having several problems in your personal life since
last year. In fact, your capacity to provide for your two-year-old daughter, Angel, was one
of the major reasons why the Court granted you custody after the divorce. Peter, your now
ex-husband, has been suffering from financial difficulties.

Although you had married Peter for love, over time the spark faded and the two of you could
never be on the same page. As a result, you resorted to alcohol to drown your sorrows. Initially,
the abuse wasn’t so bad and you could handle yourself. However, over time, you became
addicted to alcohol and started going to a bar everyday after work. Consequently, you came
back home very late. You had hardly been spending any time with your daughter when Peter
took her away. While you had appointed a well-qualified nanny to take care of your daughter,
you were personally not directly taking care of her.

On 15th April 2022, you had an off from work and so, you did not go to a bar. You were feeling
extremely miserable about the limited time that you spent with your daughter which is why you
decided to take her to the park. In order to maximize your time and to make sure that Angel
could feel your presence and truly see your love for her, you decided to give a day off to the
nanny. You took Angel to the park at around 5pm.
However, you got an urgent work call and left her unattended. Since you live in a gated colony
with 24/7 security support, you did not even think twice about leaving her alone for a few
minutes.
The call was from your boss and he scolded you about some work that you had done. After the
call, you were extremely anxiousand stressed so you decided to make a drink for yourself. You
never realized when one drinkturned into 5 and amidst this chaos, you completely forgot
about Angel.

Peter lived in the same colony and he was taking a walk in the park at around 8pm when he saw
Angel playing alone in the park. He and Angel always shared a very close bond and Angelwas
visibly excited to see her father. However, Peter was astonished to find out that you had left their
two-year-old daughter unattended in a public space. He waited for two hours, till 10pm but you
never came. At 10:30 pm, he decided to take Angel to his house.

When you finally came to your senses at around 11pm in the night, you rushed downstairs to the
park. However, Angel was not there. You were worried that your daughter had been kidnapped
so you picked up your phone to call the police. However, your concern was assuaged when you
saw 3 missed calls and a text from Peter, saying that he had taken Angel to his house.
You are worried that this incident will give Peter an opportunity to agitate a custody battle
once again. Post the incident, you started to take therapy sessions so as to resolve your alcohol
issues.