O (Summary Return: Non-Convention Country), Re

The Honourable Mr Justice Cobb :

Introduction

The children at the centre of this appeal are a boy (‘D’) who is five years old, and his sister (‘A’) who is four years old. The Appellant is their mother (‘the mother’), and the Respondent, their father (‘the father’).

The mother brings this appeal, with the permission of Moylan LJ, against an order of Ms Hannah Markham KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, dated 21 February 2025. By that order, the Judge ordered the summary return of D and A to Nigeria. Nigeria is a ‘non-Convention country’, that is to say a country which is not a signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (‘the 1980 Hague Convention’). The return order was to take effect by 1 March 2025.

The Judge gave her reasons for her decision in a judgment which she handed down on 20 February 2025. Simultaneously, the Judge handed down a judgment ordering the mother’s former solicitors, Burnham Law, to pay the wasted costs of an earlier aborted final hearing; this is reported as A Father v A Mother [2025] EWHC 364 (Fam) (20 February 2025) (see further §15 below). Following the delivery of the two judgments, the mother instructed her current solicitors, who in turn acted swiftly to initiate the appellate process. Moylan LJ granted a stay of the substantive return order, and the children (and the mother) remain in this jurisdiction pending the decision on the appeal.

For the purposes of determining this appeal, this Court has been provided with a significant amount of the written evidence which was before the Judge; we have been greatly assisted by leading and junior counsel for both parties.

For the reasons set out below, I would dismiss this appeal.

Background facts

The essential background facts, collected in the main from the judgment under review, are these.

The mother and father are Nigerian. The father, an engineer, moved to live in England in 2004, and obtained British Citizenship in 2013. The parties met in 2015 and married in Nigeria in June 2016. The mother moved to England in 2017; she obtained British Citizenship in 2023. The parties’ children were both born in England. D has complex special needs and is neurologically diverse; it is said that he cannot effectively communicate and has difficulty focusing and following instructions. He requires speech and language therapy, and occupational therapy.

In December 2022, the father moved to a third state (‘X’) for work. The mother an