The High Court has ordered a six-year-old child to be returned to Poland after finding that no defence to return under the Hague Convention had been established.
In a judgment delivered on 20 December 2016, Ms Justice Bronagh O’Hanlon ruled on the father’s application under the Convention and related EU regulations. The mother was not legally represented at the hearing. The court said she had been deemed eligible for legal aid on payment of a €500 contribution.
The father said he had brought the mother and children to an airport on 17 June 2016 for a two-week holiday in Ireland, but the mother did not return the child to Poland after that period. The mother accepted that the child had been habitually resident in Poland before the retention. She alleged that the father had agreed to the move, saying he made her leave the family home and told her to look for work in Ireland. The father maintained that his consent was limited to the holiday.
The judge found insufficient evidence of clear, cogent and unequivocal consent to the child remaining in Ireland beyond the two weeks. The court also considered the mother’s grave-risk defence, including her allegation that the father had been violent towards her. The father accepted one incident, saying it had been brought to the attention of Polish authorities and that a “Blue Card” had later been discharged. The judgment records the competing submissions but does not set out a separate factual finding on the violence allegation. The court concluded that the Article 13 standard for a non-return order had not been met.
A clinical psychologist interviewed and assessed the child under a prior court order, with an interpreter present, and reported to the court. The judge said the child had not objected to returning to Poland and had said he missed his father. The child was assessed as having average maturity for his age. The court therefore found that the child-objection defence was not established.
The court ordered the child’s return to Poland, the accepted place of habitual residence. The order directed the father to collect the child at 10am on 28 December 2016 from the mother’s address as set out in the order. The judgment does not name that address.