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() Runaway teenage sailor to be quizzed over accomplice Dutch police are investigating whether schoolgirl sailor Laura Dekker was helped to flee the country to escape supervision by social workers.
By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Published: 5:34PM GMT 21 Dec 2009
Laura Dekker, the Dutch teenager who wanted to sail solo around the world, went missing Photo: AP Officers are planning to interview Laura Dekker, 14, on her return from the Caribbean on Tuesday to find out if she had an adult accomplice.
The teenager was placed under court guardianship two months ago after the authorities thwarted her plans to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world.
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Runaway schoolgirl Laura Stainforth spotted on ferry to FranceAfter running away last Friday, she was located on Sunday in the Dutch Antilles, on the island of St Maarten, three days after she was reported missing.
The teenager lives with her father near Utrecht but it was her mother who contacted police.
Miss Dekker will be quizzed as to how she managed to travel by air to the Caribbean, a feat that the Dutch police say is impossible for an unaccompanied minor.
"We will meet her at the airport and interview her at the police station. We will ask her how she travelled, why and if she travelled with someone else," said Bernhard Jens, a police spokesman.
"If someone took her out of the country without permission from her temporary guardian it is a crime."
Social services and child protection courts in Utrecht stopped Miss Dekker from setting sail on a solo voyage around the world in August. In October she was placed under court supervision.
Joost Lanshage, of the Dutch Youth Care Bureau, which appointed her court-ordered guardian, admitted the teenager was still at loggerheads with the social workers who believed that she was too immature to handle a round the world sailing trip alone.
"Everything we are trying to do is in her best interests but she does not see it that way. We thought we were getting through to her," he said.
"The only thing we can do is to try and convince her that it is not very sensible to undertake these travels at her age. It is very hard to explain, she does not like it.
"She thinks she is mature enough. It is difficult to see how she can turn 360 degrees."
Last night (MON), it remained unclear whether Miss Dekker knew anybody on the Caribbean island or whether she had any plans to use it as a start point for a sailing voyage.
Her planned trip this summer would have made her the youngest ever person to embark on a solo circumnavigation, following in the wake of Mike Perham, a 17-year-old Briton, broke the current solo-sailor world record this summer.
Mariska Woertman, a spokeswoman for the Dekker family, said that Laura did not trust the courts and social workers to let her fulfil her ambitions following a review of her case in July 2010.
"She didn't feel that confident any more that one day she could really sail away," she said.
