The High Court has ordered the return of a 10-year-old girl to Romania after finding that her mother wrongfully retained her in Ireland at the end of an agreed summer holiday.
In a judgment delivered on 7 January 2026, Ms Justice Nuala Jackson found that S remained habitually resident in Romania when she was due to return there on 20 August 2025 and that her father was exercising rights of custody at the time.
S was born in Romania in 2015 and lived there throughout her life before travelling to Ireland in July 2025. Her parents separated in 2017. A Romanian court granted them joint parental authority in 2020, and an interim order made in 2022 provided that S live with her father. Her mother had moved to Ireland in 2021 and had an unresolved relocation application before the Romanian courts.
The father formally consented to S travelling to Ireland between 12 July and 20 August 2025 for a holiday. The High Court found no evidence that he had consented to a permanent relocation, either in 2021 or in 2025.
The mother relied on several Hague Convention defences, including alleged consent, grave risk or intolerability and S's objections to returning. The court rejected the consent and grave-risk arguments. Allegations concerning the father's behaviour were disputed, while earlier Romanian proceedings had resulted in joint custody, extensive contact and later primary residence with him.
An expert assessor found that S genuinely objected to returning and was sufficiently mature for those views to count. However, the assessor also identified adult-derived language, inconsistencies and concerns that S's wholly negative account of Romania did not accord with other evidence.
The judge concluded that Romania remained the appropriate jurisdiction to resolve the long-running parental dispute and exercised her discretion in favour of return. She said undertakings should address concerns that neither the father nor paternal grandmother blame or censure S for what had happened.