A GRIEF-STRICKEN Hampshire family was today beginning the legal fight to keep a bright and lovable little girl who could be whisked away to Greece.

The life of the Charman family at Dibden Purlieu was thrown into tragedy earlier this month by a terrible road accident near Beaulieu Road in the New Forest.

Adam Charman and his wife Karen, who was on the pillion seat of his motorcycle, were in collision with a car.

Karen, who had a four-year-old daughter Marianna by her previous husband in Greece, died instantly, which left her husband and his parents hoping they, in close conjunction with Karen's mother who lives at Eastleigh, would be able to continue bringing up the little girl.

"It was Karen's wish that in the event of her death I should be her daughter's legal guardian," said Adam.

But even Karen had to fight a legal battle last year for the right to keep her daughter and the Charman family's worst fears were realised at the weekend when they received a message from Greece.

That message, which has prompted the family to begin setting up a legal fighting fund, came in the shape of a notification from the lawyer of Karen's first husband.

"It informed us that he will be coming to England to get a passport to take Marianna back to Greece," said Adam's mother Margaret Charman.

And in confirming that the families will fight tooth and nail to keep the knowledgeable little girl who went to school early because she was so bright, she said: "We have already been in touch with the wel-fare department and social service. "And we will be seeing our solicitor, who is a specialist in child welfare. Our first aim, will be to make her a ward of court so she cannot be taken out of the country.

"We feel very strongly that he is not a suitable parent; she hasn't lived with him since she was 18 months old, she is five next week, she doesn't know him, she doesn't know his family and she doesn't speak Greek," said Mrs Charman.

She added that Karen had signed a piece of paper expressing the wish that if anything did happen to her, she would want Marianna brought up by Adam.

"We have been told that that is worthless and that the outcome is inevitable. But we have to fight it; not for our sake and not for Adam's sake, but for Marianna's sake. If she went back to Greece, she would not get the childhood and the upbringing that she deserves," she said.

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