British man arrested in New York for failing to pay child support to US daughters

A British conductor (of the orchestral rather than the automobile variety), ailment diagnosis Paul Hillier, was arrested when he arrrived at New York airport for failing to pay child support for his two daughters who live in the US with his ex-wife. 

Prosecutors claim Mr Hillier, who is from Dorchester, Dorset, had been ducking payments to his daughters, 24 and 19, for four years. He faced four criminal charges of failing to make the court-ordered payments. 

His arrest came about after prosecutors kept tabs on his website and spotted that he was due to visit the US to perform in the Mostly Mozart Festival. Mr Hillier was not held overnight and was able to appear at the concert after arranging to wire the outstanding cash.

The arrest warrant said Mr Hillier's past behaviour showed 'a disregard for court orders and the financial well-being of his family'.

He had withheld the payments after his former wife prevented their daughters from visiting him. 'My rights as a father have been comprehensively trampled into the ground', he added in a statement.

The comments to this story in the Daily Mail are worth reading, not least because they're more or less split along gender lines. For what it's worth, my view would be that he should have paid up years ago and relied on that to show his determination to stick within the law to persuade the courts to order contact.