19th April 2010

Family law solicitors for the father of three children caught up in an international child abduction case have argued that the English High Court judge's decision to let the children stay in the UK with their mother is a "radical" ruling which will have "far-reaching impact" on subsequent cases.

At a hearing in March Mrs Justice Black ruled that two of the three young children's views were valid in the consideration of where they should live.

The children – a boy of three, a girl of five and a boy of eight – were removed from their home in Ireland by their mother and brought to England without the father's consent.

The father made an application to the High Court, under the Hague Convention, for the summary return of the children, but this was turned down by Mrs Justice Black who took note of the children's views as gained from interviews with a Cafcass officer.

The girl was said to have been left with a "visceral" fear of being sent to live with her father in Ireland and the judge believed there was no evidence to suggest that the children had been influenced or pressured by the mother to form these opinions.

Mrs Justice Black noted that the Hague Convention "does not stipulate an age below which a child cannot have attained an age and degree of maturity at which it is appropriate to take account of its views and nor do the authorities."

The appeal court judges took two hours to uphold the ruling and to deny any right of the father to further appeals. However, as the nature of the ruling is so important to family law solicitors and significant in international divorce cases, the judges reserved the handing down of the court's reasons to a later date.