The High Court has kept in place a Circuit Court order that the parties’ daughter live primarily with her father and continue attending B. College, while adding directions intended to support cooperation between the parents.
The mother had appealed the Circuit Court’s February 2011 order on residence, schooling and the child’s passport. At the High Court hearing, her counsel confirmed that both parents should have joint custody. The dispute was principally about where the child would live and go to school.
The High Court found that the mother had failed to return the child to Ireland in 2009 as agreed, describing this as a technical abduction. It also found that both parents assaulted each other during an altercation in August 2009, witnessed by the child. The judge said the incident had deeply affected the child and probably contributed to separation anxiety concerning her mother.
The court also criticised conduct by both parents. It found that the mother’s handling of the incident’s recording and her failure to disclose it in earlier proceedings amounted to an abuse of court process. The judge found some of the father’s conduct tended to alienate the child from her mother, including disparaging remarks and using a shutter to prevent goodbye waves. He also criticised the father’s conduct around relationships and the use of care assistants. The court described the mother’s alienating behaviour as continuous but low-grade.
The judge considered both schools adequate for the child’s educational needs. The child was settled at B. College, had friendships there and had told an assessor she wished to remain. The court also noted that the mother could support schooling in M., but found no sufficient reason to change the existing arrangements. It said the child’s wishes should be considered when she was 12 or 13 and nearing the end of primary school.
The High Court affirmed orders 1, 2 and 15 of the Circuit Court order, with variations. It directed the father to provide the mother with information about housekeepers, nannies and other people to whom he delegates the child’s care, subject to limits on use of that information. It also directed him to allow only appropriate people into the residence he shares with the child and to act with propriety if he forms a relationship.
The parents were directed to use a mediating approach, refer strategic disagreements first to the father’s mother and, if that was not possible, to an agreed arbitrator or the court. The court encouraged occasional informal meetings with the child. The father must stop using shutters or curtains to control handover waves within six months of the judgment, with both parents expected to maintain orderly handovers.