Judge refuses to 'give up' on British woman caged by father in Saudi Arabia

A British woman who claimed she has been "caged" by her father in Saudi Arabia after she "kissed a guy" has reportedly asked the High Court to end her efforts to secure freedom.

Last month, Mr Justice Holman said Amina Al-Jeffery had been "deprived of her liberty" and ordered her father, Mohammad, to facilitate her return to England or Wales. Al-Jeffery was born and raised in Swansea. The 22-year-old was supposed to have arrived back in the country by 4pm on 11 September.

Despite the order, the judge conceded that there was "little or nothing this court could do" to enforce the ruling if her father was "determined not to comply with it".

But on Tuesday (13 September), the High Court heard that Al-Jeffery had asked to "withdraw my charges and end this case," the Daily Mail reported. The document said that the pair had been "building our trust" and expressed her wish to stay in the Gulf kingdom to "work on my relationship with my father and get my life back on track".

Al-Jeffery's solicitor, Anne-Marie Hutchinson, is now preparing to fly out to Saudi Arabia to visit her client and the judge deemed that a meeting in person between the two is "the only way to get to the bottom of this matter".

Mr Justice Holman refused to "give up" on Al-Jeffery, who has dual British and Saudi nationality. He added that her position appears to be "equivocal".

He added that a "significant development" in Al-Jeffery's case happened on 12 September when Hutchinson and others "received an email which comes from what is known to be the email address of Amina." But it "does not follow of course that Amina sent the email".

He said: "It seems to me in this situation that there is only one efficient, effective and reliable way for all of us, and ultimately myself – this court – to get to the truth of the matter, and that is for Miss Hutchinson to be enabled to have a direct face-to-face meeting with Amina with no one else present in the room."

Swansea West MP Geraint Davies has pleaded with Boris Johnson to secure her safe return. "I appreciate Amina's father may try to make some implausible suggestion that Amina no longer wants to return and that you may wish to acquiesce this absurdity to avoid embarrassing the Saudi authorities," Davies wrote to the UK foreign secretary.

"However, claims made under duress should be rejected. If Amina is in the captivity of her father then he may compel her to make statements by email, text message or telephone from captivity."

Al-Jeffery had reportedly sent a picture of what she claimed to be the cage she had been kept in to a friend.