The High Court has directed that a seven-year-old child be returned to Poland after finding that her removal to or retention in Ireland was wrongful under the Hague Convention. The court has not set a return date: it will first hear submissions on safeguards and the timing of any return.
In a judgment delivered on 10 March 2025, Ms Justice Nuala Jackson found that the father had custody rights under Polish law and was exercising them. The child had been habitually resident in Poland. The mother’s application to relocate her to Ireland was still before the Polish courts, and the father had not consented to the move.
The judge rejected the mother’s argument that the child was settled in Ireland. The return proceedings began within a year of the removal or retention, whichever date applied, so the settlement defence under Article 12 was not engaged. The court also found no evidence that the father had consented to or acquiesced in the move.
The mother argued that returning the child would expose her to grave risk, citing the father’s past domestic-violence conviction, allegations of threats and alcohol misuse, and later conduct. The judge found that the evidence cumulatively showed a grave risk. However, she concluded that protective measures imposed by Polish authorities—including restrictions on contact between the parents and supervised contact arrangements—were sufficient to address that risk. The grave-risk defence therefore failed.
The court accepted that the child objected to seeing her father and was old enough for her views to warrant careful consideration. But the judge had reservations about whether those views were independently formed, relying in part on an assessor’s report that the child’s account lacked nuance and appeared unlikely to have been formed independently in its entirety. The judge considered the objections focused on seeing her father rather than returning to Poland, and exercised her discretion in favour of return.
The judgment also raised concerns about the child’s circumstances in Ireland, including her mother’s partner being in custody on serious drug charges. The partner denies the allegations, and the judgment records the mother’s belief in his innocence. These matters were among the welfare concerns considered by the court; they were not findings that the partner committed an offence.
The judge said the return order would require appropriate undertakings and that its timing must take account of the child’s welfare and the time she had spent in Ireland. Because the parties had not addressed those arrangements at the hearing, the court listed the matter for further submissions within 14 days. The judgment does not determine the underlying custody or contact arrangements, which remain for the Polish courts.