The High Court has ordered a boy at the centre of international child return proceedings to return from Ireland to England by 4 June 2014, after he completes the Irish school year. The order does not decide which parent he will live with long term or where he will attend school after the English courts assess his welfare.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan on 16 May 2014, concerned an application by the boy’s mother under the Hague Convention and EU Regulation 2201/2003. The father had brought him from England to Ireland on 5 February 2014. The father did not dispute that the removal was wrongful under the Convention, that the boy had been habitually resident in England, or that the mother held and was exercising custody rights without consenting to the move.
The father’s only defence was that the boy objected to returning to England. The court heard evidence from consultant clinical psychologist Anne O’Connell, who interviewed the boy and reported that he wanted to live with his father and attend school in Ireland. She said he could form his own views and that she found no evidence of undue influence. The mother’s submission that the father had manipulated the boy’s views was rejected by the psychologist; the judge accepted her assessment.
The judge found that the boy did object to returning and that this was his own view. He wanted to stay in Ireland, attend secondary school there and be near extended family. But the court considered that his objection was principally to living in England because that would prevent him continuing school and sports in Ireland, rather than to England itself or living with his mother. He had previously settled in Gloucestershire and had friends there, and had taken part in sports with local teams.
Despite finding the child’s objection established, the judge exercised the discretion under Article 13 in favour of return. She said his views were not decisive and that refusing return could give the father an advantage in the pending English proceedings. The English courts, not the Irish High Court, would make the ultimate decision on the boy’s residence and schooling after a full welfare assessment.
The return was delayed to allow him to finish the Irish school year, due to end on 30 May. The judge said the mother had confirmed a place was available for him at a Birmingham school and sought undertakings that she would arrange his attendance after his return, facilitate phone and Skype contact with his father and reasonable in-person contact if he travelled to England, and pursue the English proceedings promptly. The court also ordered that the judgment and related materials be released for use in those proceedings, and said it would ask the English and Welsh Hague liaison judge to assist in securing a priority hearing, if feasible in time for a decision by August 2014.