Boy adopted by Irishman left in legal limbo

AT the Immanuel orphanage where he was left with some clothes and a small box of toys, three-year-old Tristan Dowes is known as “the Irish boy”.

Staff at the institution in Bogor, just outside Jakarta, say he is quite intelligent but has been quiet and withdrawn since his Irish adoptive father, Joe, returned him there.

Tristan was just two-months-old when he was adopted by the Dowes family, who were living in Jakarta.