Australian, Ashley Crick, the CTO of iFlix who describe themselves as a “Family Company” has been accused of shooting through in Malaysia with a child, after a row with his former partner, Neighbours actress Eliza Szonert, during a child custody dispute.
Malaysia supports child kidnapping, where it is not a crime to take children from partners.
Crick a former IBM executive, was a co-founded of Xeoscale with former IBM Global Sales Executive Mark Hulme, the objective of the Company was to improve “business performance”.
iflix which operates similar to Netflix, is a partnership between Malaysian business executives Catcha Group and Evolution Media Capital, at one stage the Company was looking at trying to enter the Australian content market.
iFlix content is exclusively bundled onto Samsung devices in Malaysia.
Crick who is also a musician, has been accused of holding onto his wife’s passport while refusing to reveal where their son who has been living with his mother in Australia and was in Malaysia after his former partner decided to visit Crick.
In an interview for a trade publication recently, Mr Crick was quoted as saying he was an Aussie “learning the South East Asian cultural quirks in a town none of us have lived in before, and enjoying it immensely working on a successful little project”.
“I’m loving it in Kuala Lumpur – it’s a beautiful city and great hub in the middle of everywhere we are aiming to be.”
Last night Australia’s Foreign Affairs Department confirmed it was providing consular assistance to a woman in Kuala Lumpur but declined to provide further details due to privacy obligations.
Azran Osman-Rani,iflix Group COO and CEO of iflix has not said whether he will put pressure on Crick to return the child.
Fairfax Media reports that Kay Szonert said her daughter Eliza had travelled to Malaysia with her son to visit Mr Crick.
She said there was a disagreement and Ms Szonert had been told to get out of the apartment without her passport, also leaving her son behind.
Mrs Szonert said Eliza had sought her son’s return but had not seen the boy for over a week.
She said she believed Mr Crick had Ms Szonert’s passport.
“I’m worried for her well-being. I’m amazed that she has been coping as well as she has. I don’t know for how long, but she doesn’t want to go home without her son.”
Kay Szonert said her daughter had sought help from the Australian embassy to get her son back and also retrieve her passport.
She said officials had not been able to assist in recovering the child.
The Malaysian Government despite being a member of the Commonwealth is known to support child kidnapping.
Fairfax understands the embassy has made representations with regard to the passport but is unable to become involved in the custody issue because of legal issues with regard to Malaysia.
Malaysia is not a signatory to The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
