Despite her having custody of her children, Alexander and Constantin, her German ex-husband refused to return them to London after a summer holiday visit in 1994.[2] This led to her almost decade-long legal battle in the German and English courts to gain access to her sons.[3] Her account of these events is found in her two books. When Alexander and Constantin reached adulthood, they made contact with Meyer. She commented in interviews that they would have turned out differently if she raised them, but she is extremely proud of them. Both sons still live in Germany.
In October 1997, she married Christopher Meyer on the eve of his departure to Washington to become British Ambassador to the United States. During their five and a half years in America, she campaigned against international parental child abduction alongside a number of American parents in a similar situation with Germany.[4]
She has also taken her campaign against international parental child abduction to Europe, giving evidence before the Belgian Senate;[10] successfully lobbying the EU to tighten its rules against parental child abduction;[11] and, together with ICMEC, persuading the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Convention to produce a good practice guide to the implementation of the Convention.[12]
Since 2003 and her return to the UK from America, she has broadened AAA's mission to embrace children who go missing for any reason. This has led to close co-operation with the Home Office, the police, CEOP and other charities. She was a member of the Home Secretary's Strategic Oversight Group on missing people, created in 2006 by David Blunkett. Her campaigns have focussed on the difficulties of measuring exactly how many children go missing every year;[14] the adoption by police forces of the Missingkids Website;[15] and the Child Rescue Alert.[16] On 25 May 2011, International Missing Children's Day, the Home Office announced major changes to child protection services in the UK, in particular the passing of responsibility for missing, abducted and exploited children to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency (CEOP). This was the culmination of a ten-year lobbying campaign. Meyer's role was recognised in the Home Office press release.[17]
On 12 December 2024, the Conduct Committee of the House of Lords recommended suspending Meyer for 3 weeks for harassment "related to race". This followed complaints that Meyer called Lord Dholakia, of Indian origin, "Lord Poppadom" twice during a taxi ride in Rwanda, during a visit as part of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Meyer initially denied using the term, but later admitted she may have said it after drinking up to three glasses of wine at a dinner. There was also a complaint that she had touched the hair of a black MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, without permission. She has apologised for both incidents.[23][24][25]
Directorships
From 2003 to 2007 she was a non-executive director of LIFFE (London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange).[26]
From 2013 to 2014 she was a trustee of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences.[27]
From 28 May 2024 she has been a director of The Museum of Communist Terror. [28]
Awards
In 1999, Meyer received the Adam Walsh Rainbow Award[29] for outstanding contribution to children's causes and was named by British Airways Business Life magazine for her campaigning on behalf of abducted children.
^"Responding to tragedy". International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
^["Forum Conclusions"] "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 24 December 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) April 1999.
^["Parliamentary Ombudsman"] "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 26 March 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link), 25 May 2011
