The High Court has ruled that two children wrongfully taken from England to Ireland should be returned to England, rejecting their mother’s grave-risk defence and finding that their views did not outweigh the case for return. The court said it would make the return order conditional on payment of an agreed sum and would hear the parties on its exact terms.
The father applied under the Child Abduction and Enforcement of Custody Orders Act 1991 and the Hague Convention. The children, referred to in the judgment as Tara and Paul, had lived in England since birth. The parents shared custody under an English Child Arrangements Order made in August 2021. The father did not consent to their removal to Ireland in late February 2022. Those matters were not disputed, and the court found the removal wrongful under the Convention.
The mother argued that the father’s excessive drinking placed the children at grave risk if returned to his care. Her affidavits described two incidents, including one in December 2021; police confirmed reports concerning that incident and another from April 2020. The judge stressed that the allegations were denied and had not been tested by cross-examination, so the court assessed the risk on the assumption that they were true rather than deciding the disputed facts definitively.
The judgment noted that after the December incident the mother left the children with their father for at least two weeks in January 2022. Neither parent had raised safeguarding concerns in interviews for an English childcare report in June 2021. The judge said the evidence did not establish grave risk or show that the English courts could not address any concerns. The judgment left questions about the father’s drinking to the relevant English family court.
A psychologist’s report recorded both children’s preference to remain in Ireland with their mother. The judge found that seven-year-old Tara’s views amounted to a relatively mild objection, but she could not explain her references to danger in her English home town. Six-year-old Paul expressed a preference, not an objection, and spoke positively of his father. The court considered Tara’s objection but found it insufficiently cogent or weighty to outweigh the factors favouring return.
The judgment says undertakings were given at the hearing about how the children would return and arrangements if the mother lacked immediate accommodation. The court did not set out the final order’s exact terms in the judgment; it said those terms would be heard after making the order conditional on payment of the agreed sum.