The High Court ordered a father to pay the mother’s legal costs arising after the Court of Appeal rejected his challenge to an order for their three children to return to England. The costs ruling addressed proceedings over the father’s subsequent failure to comply with court orders; it did not decide where the children would live.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty on 19 October 2023, concerns the children, identified as Esther, Samuel and Oliva. The parents are both anonymised as O.S. The mother had publicly funded legal representation and the father represented himself.
After the return order was upheld on appeal, the father emailed the Court of Appeal on 31 July 2023 saying he would not return the children. The High Court directed him either to return them by 8 August or produce them on 9 August so their mother could take them to England. He did neither. A motion for attachment and committal was heard on 9 August by Mr Justice Simons; the costs judgment does not say that the motion resulted in an attachment or committal order.
The father later said he intended to travel to England. On 11 August, the court was told that he and the children had already left on a ferry from Belfast to Liverpool the previous morning. The judge found that his email about hoping to fly later that day was a deliberate attempt to mislead the lawyers, police and judge about their location. The Amber Alert system had been considered to ensure the children’s safety.
At a later hearing, the mother sought costs for the court dates since the unsuccessful appeal. The father opposed an order, saying the state was paying and that he could not afford the costs. He also argued that the mother had used his lack of legal representation against him and that a judge had not listened to him. Justice Gearty rejected those arguments, finding that he was responsible for any motion he did not bring and that he had been heard, but could not reopen the concluded return case.
The court noted that parties in family proceedings usually bear their own costs, but that costs may be ordered where serious misconduct or obstruction makes further proceedings necessary. It found that the mother’s applications since the appeal had all succeeded and had been necessitated by the father’s refusal to comply with the Irish court orders. The court ordered him to pay all the mother’s legal costs arising after the Court of Appeal proceedings concluded. The judgment does not specify a sum.