The High Court has ordered the return of a two-year-old child to England and Wales after finding that he was wrongfully removed from that jurisdiction and brought to Ireland. The order followed an application by Lancashire County Council under the Hague Convention on international child abduction.
In a judgment delivered on 27 October 2017, Ms Justice Reynolds said the child had been habitually resident in England when he was removed. The court found the local authority retained parental responsibility and custody rights under a care order made by the Family Court at Preston in July 2016, and was exercising those rights when the child was taken.
The mother and child had lived in a mother and baby unit under a home placement agreement. The care order provided that the child could not be removed from the United Kingdom without written consent from everyone with parental responsibility or leave of the court. The mother had sought the authority’s consent for a planned visit to Lithuania, but the judgment records that she removed the child to Lithuania on 4 July 2017 while that request was being processed. Some weeks later, she brought him to Ireland to live with his father in Waterford.
The English Family Court had ordered the child’s return on 14 September 2017, finding that he was habitually resident in England, had been wrongfully removed, and that the courts of England and Wales had jurisdiction over parental responsibility. The Irish proceedings began on 18 September. An interim order placed the child in the care of the Child and Family Agency pending their determination.
The mother gave oral evidence on behalf of both respondents. She accepted that local authority consent was required, but said returning to England would be traumatising for the family, who no longer had a home or employment there. The court said that objection did not meet the Hague Convention’s “grave risk” threshold. It also noted that the application sought to protect the child from the risks that had led to the care order, and that courts in the country of habitual residence could be trusted to protect children in such cases.
The court granted the relief sought and directed the child’s return to England and Wales. It did not decide what further orders should follow there. The matter was to be listed for directions within seven days of the child’s return, and the judge said she would hear from the parties about the arrangements needed to implement the order.