HEART thudding, Georgina Hann watched through the window as her daughter Jayhan reached up to get the keys.

With the girl’s grandmother in the next room reading the newspaper, Georgina breathed a sigh of relief as Jayhan opened the door and ran out.

She scooped up her five-year-old daughter and whisked her to the waiting Jeep.

It was 1992 when Georgina went to Turkish Cyprus to snatch her daughter, Jayhan, back from her father, Hussein.

Jayhan had been taken by Hussein, two years earlier, from her home in Basildon.

Georgina was unable to get her back through the official channels, because the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus didn’t come under the Hague Convention. This was designed to ensure the return of children who had been abducted and taken abroad.

Georgina says: “When Jayhan was taken, all I could focus on for those two years was bringing her home.

“It was the last resort for me and there was no going back.”

A British Army officer, who was stationed in Cyprus, drove the Jeep and helped them get to the border of Cyprus and then back to Britain.

When they got back to the UK there was a media storm and Georgina found herself being interviewed by various newspapers and TV shows.

Georgina and Hussein had a turbulent relationship after meeting and falling in love in 1984, while Georgina was travelling in Cyprus.

She fell pregnant a year later and the couple lived together. But as their relationship fell apart, a desperately unhappy Georgina took Jayhan, without Hussein’s knowledge, to live in Basildon.

But Hussein came to England in 1990 and took Jayhan back to Cyprus.

After two years of trying to go through official channels to get her daughter back, Georgina eventually travelled to Cyprus and took her.

She says: “When I got Jayhan back in 1992 suddenly all the emotions I had kept hidden when I was trying to get her back came out.

After moving around the world, they finally settled back in the UK.

Mother and daughter had a tempestuous relationship. Jayhan left home at 18 and cut all direct contact with Georgina.

It was not until last year that they started speaking again.

Now philosophical about what happened, Georgina has completed a manuscript for a book called Snatched, detailing her experiences.

The 46-year-old, who grew up in Basildon, but now lives in London, says: “Writing the book I had to relive a lot of things and there were a lot of tears.

“However, it gave me a better perspective on things and it felt very liberating to say everything I wanted to say.”

Now she is putting her focus into a plan to create a sanctuary for people who have suffered from their child being abducted by a parent.

Georgina says: “There was not a huge amount of support out there at the time Jayhan was taken.

“I have a vision of a sanctuary which will house people who have suffered parental abduction.

“I would be there to give advice to parents because I have lived it. Had there been a facility in place like this I firmly believe things could have been very different.”