The High Court ordered a two-year-old child’s return to England and Wales after finding that she had been wrongfully removed to Ireland. The judgment, delivered on 13 December 2016, concerned an application under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
The applicant, J.K., is named as the child’s father on her birth certificate. The respondent, S.A.L.K., is her mother. They have never been married. The child, identified in the proceedings as L.K., was born in England and Wales on 7 August 2014.
The application alleged that the respondent brought the child to Ireland by ferry on 1 August 2016. The applicant argued that the child was habitually resident in England and Wales, where she had lived all her life, and that he had been exercising custody rights through access visits and participation in English court proceedings. The London Borough of Havering, which was joined as a notice party, also submitted that it held and exercised custody rights.
On 23 November 2016, the High Court recorded the respondent’s undertaking not to remove the child from Ireland pending the case and to attend the hearing. She did not attend the hearing on 12 December, and Garda assistance was needed to bring her and the child to court. The judgment says the child was too young to be interviewed about her views.
The respondent did not dispute that the child was habitually resident in England and Wales or that she knew about the English proceedings. She alleged that the applicant was not the child’s natural father, described concerns about a social worker, and said she had support in Ireland and wanted to remain there with her children. The court said welfare issues were for the courts of England and Wales, which had jurisdiction based on the child’s habitual residence and were better placed to decide them.
The High Court found that the child was and remained habitually resident in England and Wales. It was satisfied that the applicant had custody rights under English law because he was named on the birth certificate, and that he had exercised those rights until the respondent brought the child to Ireland. The court declared the removal wrongful and found that no Convention defence had been raised. It ordered the child’s return to England and Wales, along with any other orders needed to facilitate the return.