Brest - French police are hunting for the former wife of Booker prize-winning author Ian McEwan, after she absconded with their 13-year-old son. Ms Penny Allen (51) went on the run yesterday before a judge in Guingamp, near her Brittany home, upheld a ruling by the English courts that the child should be returned to his father.
The author, who lives in Oxford with the couple's 15-year-old son and his second wife, had travelled to France yesterday for the hearing before a family court judge with the intention of travelling back with his younger child.