A NEWPORT mother says she had no choice but to agree to a custody arrangement six years ago which has torn her family apart.

Marilyn Jones agreed to give custody of her now ten year old daughter Leila to her ex-husband Chokri Khalfallah because she feared if she did not she would never see her daughter again.

Now Mrs Jones, who lives in Newport with her three other children, only sees Leila twice a year.

"I had no choice. He could have stopped me seeing Leila altogether. It's like being bereaved every time I go to see her and have to leave," said Mrs Jones, 46, of Wolseley Street, Pill.

The agreement means Leila has had to live without her in Tunisia for the last seven years. But Mrs Jones said she agreed to the arrangements as she feared Mr Khalfallah might have stopped her seeing Leila.

She said: "I did feel a bit like I was selling her down the river at the time of the custody agreement. There is very little I can do to get her back. It takes the shine off every bit of enjoyment we have as a family."

The split came when, at the end of a holiday in Tunisia, Mr Khalfallah refused to allow his daughter to return to the UK.

Under Tunisian law a child under 20 cannot leave the country unless the father gives his permission.

The couple had been having problems when Mr Khalfallah said on the last day of a family holiday in his homeland in 1999, that he and Leila, then three, would not be returning to Britain with Mrs Jones and their son Sami. He said he did not want Leila, as a girl, growing up in the West.

Mrs Jones now only sees her daughter a couple of times a year on visits to the village of Akouda in Port el Kantaoui. The last was at Christmas.

In 2000, the parents came to a custody agreement in proceedings in Newport and Tunisia, which gave Mr Khalfallah custody of Leila and Mrs Jones custody of Sami, 11 and Marisa, six, with whom she was pregnant when the couple split.

Mrs Jones says her ex-husband has never brought Leila back into British jurisdiction to visit her family.

She said she would not consider living in Tunisia after a "terrible experience" when the couple moved there in 1994 for Mr Khalfallah to work. She says she had no money or friends during the two years.

Now Mrs Jones wants to warn other parents with foreign partners about the dangers they face when taking their children abroad.

Mrs Jones has since had another child, Morgan, aged two, by a different partner.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said there was nothing they could do for Mrs Jones because Tunisian law did not recognise Leila's dual nationality.

She confirmed the father must give his permission before his child can leave the country.