J (A Child) (Finland)(Habitual Residence)

Judgment

Lady Justice Black:

This is an appeal against the decision made on 5 January 2016, by Her Honour Judge Cushing, that the English court did not have jurisdiction in relation to proceedings which the appellant wished to bring concerning M, his five year old son. The respondent to the appeal is M’s mother.

The father is of British and Nigerian ancestry. He has lived for all of his adult life in England. The mother is a Finnish national. She lived in England between about 2002 and the end of 2014 but made trips to Finland during that time. The parties met in about 2003 and were married in Finland in 2010. They separated in early 2013 when the mother left the matrimonial home, taking M with her.

Proceedings between the parties in relation to M have been on foot for much of the period since the separation. On 14 November 2014, at the conclusion of a hearing which had taken several days, Deputy District Judge Lavelle ordered that M should live with the mother and made an order providing that the mother was “permitted to remove [M] from England and Wales on or after 29 December 2014 to live permanently in Finland.” Deputy District Judge Lavelle’s order included arrangements as to the time M was to spend with the father. Once he went to live in Finland, he was to be made available for staying contact with the father in England on a minimum of 3 occasions in each of 2015 and 2016. He was also to be made available for staying contact in Finland on a minimum of 3 occasions per year and to have Skype contact with the father.

The order included, as part of the preamble, a record of various ancillary arrangements agreed between the parties as to contact, covering matters such as who would pay the associated travel costs and where M should spend Christmas and his birthdays. This section of the order included the following provision:

“The parents shall attend a single session of extended mediation with the child’s NYAS Guardian to take place on a date to be agreed, but in any event no later than 11 December 2014.”

It was agreed that details of the 2015 contact would be discussed at the mediation. There was a delay in the provision of a sealed copy of the order which the father says he received only on 30 March 2015. He points out that there are two places in it where there is a blank which looks as if it was intended for further information. Both relate to where M would be collected and returned for the purposes of contact. The father’s case is that these