A woman faces three years in prison for kidnapping her daughter to escape her allegedly abusive husband.

Julia Ericson, 44, has gone on trial in the town of Krems an der Donau, in Lower Austria, Austria, for allegedly kidnapping her daughter Diana, 4.

The 44-year-old woman reportedly lived with her husband Eric and her daughter in San Francisco, in California, in the USA, before she decided to file for divorce in Austria, in 2019.

She claimed that she could no longer stand being physically and mentally abused by her spouse and said: “We were victims of domestic violence in the USA, from which our child was not excluded.

“He started controlling me. He didn’t take care of our daughter. On the contrary: he was jealous of her, constantly accusing me of neglecting him because of her.”

But when her American husband failed to appear before the court, Julia decided to take the matter into her own hands and reportedly fled with Diana to Austria in the summer of 2021.

Julia said: “A friend then offered me to come to her place in the country for the summer. Diana played in the paddling pool, fed the animals and ran happily through the garden.”

But shortly after her arrival in Austria, her husband reported her for kidnapping and applied for sole custody of their daughter.

She said: “Suddenly I was accused of child abduction.”

Julia then found herself in an exhausting legal battle with her husband, who had rejected her attempts to reach a mutual agreement concerning the child’s custody.

A police team then raided Julia’s home in the early morning hours of 20th January 2022 and handed Diana over to her father who was reportedly waiting in a vehicle outside.

The two then boarded a plane to San Francisco, after which Julia never saw her daughter again.

In a ‘GoFundMe’ campaign organised to collect funds for upcoming legal battles, Julia wrote: “Far from being happy to see her father, Diana was terrified because of prior abuse she had suffered at his hands, resulting in post-traumatic stress that was being treated by professionals in Austria.”

She continued: “They did not even allow Diana to take a single personal possession with her, let alone a clean change of clothes or a coat in the freezing winter dawn.”

During the ongoing trial, the court questioned Julia’s husband who reported he had been in Krems during the summer of 2021.

He claimed he went to the police and added: “I wanted to contact the mother.”

When asked what the little girl was doing at the moment, he responded by saying: “She is in her bed and asleep. It’s 1.45am.”

If found guilty, Julia faces up to three years in prison for kidnapping her daughter, according to local media.

The trial is ongoing.