The High Court has ordered two children to be returned from Ireland to Poland under the Hague Convention after finding that their removal by their mother was wrongful.
The children, referred to as A.J. and J.P., were born in Poland and were aged 10 and seven at the time of the proceedings. Their father, P.Li., is German and their mother, E.La., is Polish. The court accepted that Poland was the children's habitual residence.
The parents had been involved in custody disputes in Poland. In February 2007, the father had taken the children to Germany. Their mother successfully invoked the Hague Convention and secured their return to Poland in August 2007.
Polish custody proceedings then resumed. In December 2007 the father was granted interim contact. The Polish court also refused the mother's application to take the children to Ireland over the Christmas period.
On September 17, 2008, before a planned assessment of the children, the mother took them to Ireland without the father's consent or permission from the Polish court. The father commenced Hague Convention proceedings within 12 months.
In April 2009, a Polish court subsequently ordered that the children's place of residence be with their father.
Before the Irish High Court, both children told a psychologist that they did not want to live with their father in Germany. The older child also made an allegation of physical mistreatment. The father denied this.
Mr Justice Edwards held that the allegation was not supported by sufficient evidence to meet the Hague Convention's high threshold of a grave risk of physical or psychological harm or an intolerable situation. The children's views were relevant but not decisive.
The court ordered their return to Poland, not directly to Germany. What happened after their return was a matter for Polish law and the Polish courts, including the effect of the father's custody order.