By Gabriel Princewill-
A court has placed an injunction over a mother from Nottingham not to directly or indirectly contact her daughter, after a complaint that the mother regularly called social services to her home.
Chelmsford County and Family Magistrates Court placed the injunction on Francess Koi, 46,from contacting her daughter , Tyra Pritchard, 25 for the foreseeable future, following complaints from her that her mother was constituting a nuisance to her by attempting to get social services her child taken away from her.
The tension between Ms Pritchard and her mother has been raging for years, sometimes improving, then getting worse. Pritchard belief that her mother wants to see her fail has influenced her decision to go public with her story, as she seeks to understand the woman she has come to be.
Hailing from a mixture of both Sierra Leone and White English parentage, Pritchard is a bubbly mixed race lady who admits battling anger issues in her teenage years , stemming from resentment towards her parents for an alleged lack of love from them.
”I always wondered why I didn’t have a dad as a young girl. Why did other children have a dad, but not me? I wasn’t conscious there were some other children like me, I just felt jealous of those who had a dad in their life. My mum was extra strict on me, when she was angry with me, she would use the fact that my dad wasn’t there against me. I remember, she would say ‘you bastard pikin’, meaning you don’t have a dad, he doesn’t care about you’.
I thought at least my mum should care about me, but I guess she took it out on me that my dad wasn’t there to support her. After all, I wasn’t wanted, but it was only at the last minute my mum decided I should come into this world, but I didn’t choose to myself”.
Colour Of Child’s Skin
Pritchard was particularly riled when in 2018, her mother asked how dark the colour of her then unborn child would be, after it emerged she was pregnant to a man of Ghanaian roots.
Koi told this publication early in January that the question about the colour of her grandchild’s skin was a genuine question because of the known fact that Ghanaian’s are normally very dark.
The question itself has been likened unto that asked to Prince Harry by an unnamed senior member of the royal family, though it was asked long before the revelation in March from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex about their own experience in the royal family.
Some analysts have said the acrimonious family fall out in this story provides a useful example for showing that questions connected to the future colour of an unborn child’s skin can be asked without it necessarily being connected to racism. Some other critics have described this example as ‘internalized racism’.
Amie Smart said ” when questions like this are asked within a black family it smacks of some degree of inferiority complex because the question is implying that the child is worse looking if they are darker. This is generally a form of internalized racism because the darker child is viewed as less attractive than a lighter child.
Another analyst, Kerry Sanson said: ”questions like that can just be seen as questions. It is normal for a parent to just imagine how the child might look, given the information they have before them. There doesn’t have to be any racial or complex attached to it”.
Pritchard’s mum and her grandmum told this publication back in January that the question was asked because the father of the child is Ghanaian, and Ghanaian’s are usually very dark. They insist no comparison can be made between this and the question reportedly asked by a senior member of the royal family, but critics aware of this story have said it provides a perfect example to suggest the question to have been based on curiosity.
The young mother herself insists the question in the case of her unborn baby, was borne out of spite because her mother had been insinuating that the child would be blique black. ”She wanted me to believe my child will be very black because I believe she equates being very black to being ugly. I don’t know my mum to date black men, she mainly dates white men, that’s why I am mixed race. She made the comment to hurt me, definitely, she has always had something against me”.
Her child, now 20 months old came out almost as light as her mother, although Pritchard has insisted on not providing her daughter’s picture for publication.
Her mother said: ” It was simply a question of curiosity, nothing more. All I waned to do was meet the dad, but when this was denied, I could only imagine how the child would turn out. I have never done anything to hurt my child. If she were to contact me tomorrow and ask for my forgiveness, I would forgive her. I did everything for this child growing up, but she doesn’t seem to appreciate it much”.
Distance
Tyra, who is an eye full for the lads, distanced her mother for over a year as a result, over the question of how dark her unborn child would be and a tense phone call in relation to the father, which followed.
Relations between mother and daughter went downhill from there, and they never shared a word on phone , let alone in person. New years eve was meant to be the beginning of a new relationship from Pritchard’s point of view, but her mother insisted she was given access to the child so that her daughter could party into the new year- a claim Pritchard wholly rejects. ” She had access to my daughter about twice in the months leading up to Christmas, so how could she think I gave her my daughter so I can party? I was trying to have a new start.
Social Services
Koi, who works with vulnerable children in Nottingham, took things to another level when she called social services to the Essex home of her daughter on a number of occasions in January to check on the welfare of her granddaughter, after considering her to be underweight and not well looked after, agitating her daughter in the process.
It followed an unpermitted trip to Northampton hospital with the young child to undergo checks for her wellbeing on new year’s eve. Pritchard’s mother and grandmother both claimed her young child did not look well.
Pritchard, 25, claims her mother was seeking to deprive her of motherhood, adding that as a consequence, she will never be allowed to see her grandchild again.
”I was really hurt and offended that my own mother wanted me to loose my child, she was making me out to be an incompetent mother. But social services did not agree with her because the baby looked well and happy, though they still had to come round a couple of times to check on us.
Pritchard says she put her daughter in her mother’s care in what she considered an olive branch to mend their damaged relationship. Ms Pritchard and her mother had not been on good terms for the entire year, and had indeed suffered from a fractured relationship throughout her growing years.
Bullied
Pritchard says she was bullied by her mother throughout her teens, both physically and mentally.
”I was a rejected child who my mother wanted aborted because I wasn’t planned, and my father wasn’t prepared to step to the plate. So I suffered the consequences throughout my teenage years’
She also claims to have sustained injuries due to physical caning from her mother, and suffered from anorexia as a child growing up. ”My mother always told me I will be fat if I continued to eat, so at the age of 11, I was really depressed. She also told me I was ugly, and I believed her”.
”I didn’t feel loved in my teenage years, my mother was very strict and critical of me, growing up. At some stage in my development, I probably responded to attention from boys, because I simply didn’t feel loved. I was aware that my mother wanted me aborted and changed her mind at the last minute when her name was called by the doctor.
It was depressing to know that my father wasn’t there throughout my growing years, although he has recently been trying to make amends, and I appreciate him for that. I feel my mother saw me as an unwanted child and this was reflected in how she treated me.
”My mother always told me I will be fat if I continued to eat, so at the age of 11, I was an unhappy teenager and generally depressed. My mum used to hit me just for challenging her opinions. I wouldn’t dare disagree with her or question her. I was a depressed child up to at least my mid teens”.
Her mother has vehemently disputed to her claims, describing all the allegations as lies, but so deep is the hurt and resentment in this family relationship that there has even been talks of the pair telling their story on Good Morning Britain to reflect on the potential challenges single mothers and their children face without a father present.
Tyra’s father wasn’t there during the formative years of his daughter’s life; but he is trying to make amends now, a few decades later. ‘ My dad has taken an interest in my life now, though I wish he were there much earlier.
Sad
She continues: ‘It is sad it has come to this, but I know my daughter wouldn’t want to see her grandmother if she knew how bad she has been to me.
‘Think about it, my daughter would be thinking, you are horrible to my mum, you left her stranded with me in Nottingham, you got social services to try and take me away from my natural mum and leave me in care, no I don’t want you around me. That’s what my daughter’s spirit is saying, and what she would verbalize if she knew everything her grandmother does to me.
Pritchard wants to be a voice for others
‘I get jealous when I see other people fondly talk about their mother, like on mother’s day, or on their birthday. But with me, it’s just sadness and rejection. I have had to cry a lot in private, and ask whether I was cursed to have a mother like mine. One who hates me. Social services themselves were shocked at the frequency with which she was calling them to come and check on my child. They suggested I have an injunction”.
The situation between mother and daughter became bad when Koi’s granddaughter was left in her care at Romford on New Year’s eve last year by the child’s mother, Tyra Pritchard, but chose to drive her many miles away to Nottingham where she resides, without consulting the child’s mother, sparking an almighty dispute between the pair.
Ms Pritchard was eventually stranded in Nottingham when she arrived, after her mother refused to give her a lift back to Shoeburyness in Essex at the end of a marathon two days in hospital where she waited for confirmation of her child’s well-being.
Koi explained her refusal to drop her daughter home by saying that her daughter had ill-treated her all year, stopped talking to her, blocked her on social media, and prevented her from seeing a grandchild most of the year, following a falling out they had at the beginning of the year.
Francess Koi Image: Supplied
”why should I drive her for four hours from Nottingham to Romford, after her very rude behaviour, she said. If she came to Nottingham, she should have been able to finance her trip back, she said, I am not responsible for her.
”My mother is lying and is very spiteful. There was nothing wrong with my daughter, she is well looked after and she is just doing everything she can to try and get social services to take her away from me, but it’s not working. They can see there is nothing wrong with her. Social services have told me they have no concerns about my daughter and told me my mum has been calling them everyday.
Attempts by social services to mediate between Ms Pritchard and her mother failed after the injunction, with Ms Pritchard reminding them that her mother is not allowed to have contact with her.
Pritchard, a popular figure on social media’s snapchat wants to help other youths who have gone through similar experiences like her. She said: ‘I want to study more about therapy and help teenagers whose self esteem has been affected by domestic issues at home.
‘I want to inspire children of single mother’s to aspire big and try to overcome their childhood woes. It has been very difficult for me, many times, I would cry alone, wondering how I have found myself in these shoes, feeling so rejected by my own blood.
Discipline
Koi has vehemently denied the allegations from her daughter. She insists her daughter was a difficult child to raise and that she had to exercise discipline on her child as a teenager, especially as she was getting very involved in boys. However, she denies inflicting physical injury on her, and has challenged her daughter to produce supporting evidence in that regard from social services.
Koi told The Eye Of Media that her daughter had ill treated her all year, stopped talking to her, blocked her on social media, and prevented her from seeing her grandchild most of the year, because of a falling out they had at the beginning of the year. She said she was only able to see her grandchild for the first time in September. She for that reason refused to drive her daughter back to Essex, despite taking her baby to Nottingham without her consent.
”why should I drive her for four hours from Nottingham to Romford, after her very rude behaviour, she said. If she came to Nottingham, she should be able to finance her trip back, she said, I am not responsible for her.
Explaining that her grandchild was ill when she received her, she said : ”She wasn’t eating, wasn’t pooing, her eyes were rolling, so I put her in a push chair to see if she will wake up. I thought she is not responding, and was advised to give her CPR”, Koi said.
Koi told medics at Nottingham Children’s hospital that she had never met the father of her daughter’s child, and defended her reasons from bringing social services on the scene to ensure the well being of her child.
Pritchard eventually received a phone call from her mother informing her that her daughter was not breathing, forcing her to make impromptu arrangements to Nottingham on new year’s day.
On arriving there, she discovered her daughter had been discharged from hospital and a referral made to social services that she was an unfit mother.
Scared
”I was really scared when I heard by daughter wasn’t breathing, I thought she was dying, she said. I had to get one of my friend’s boyfriend to drive me all the way to Nottingham. This was completely out of my plans, and when I got there the baby I saw was different from the one mum described. I was told there was nothing wrong with her. I saw a child that was energetic, walking around the ward”.
”I have sent social services to her house to make sure my grandchild is being looked after well. Tyra is very reckless and I am really concerned for that child’s well being, and don’t want to see anything bad happen to her.
”My mother is lying and is very spiteful. There was never anything wrong with my daughter, she is well looked after and she is just doing everything she can to try and get social services to take her away from me, but it’s not working. They can see there is nothing wrong with her. Social services have told me they have no concerns about my daughter and told me my mum had been calling them everyday”