Re C (A Child) (Child Abduction: Parent’s refusal to return with child)

Sir Andrew McFarlane P:

This appeal arises from Hague Convention child abduction proceedings relating to a 6 year old French boy, C, whose parents are both French and who had, prior to March 2020, lived in France throughout his life. C was brought by his mother and maternal grandfather to England on 15 March 2020. The visit is said to have been for a short holiday, but any return to France was, at that time, prevented by the imposition of Covid protection arrangements in both countries shortly after C arrived here. In the event, after the initial lockdown restrictions were lifted, C, his mother and grandfather stayed on in England. Their whereabouts were unknown to C’s father for many months. Eventually the father traced them and Hague Convention proceedings were commenced in England in November 2020.

The proceedings were fully contested and were ultimately determined by Mr Justice Cohen in a judgment given on 30 March 2021, following a one day hearing the previous day. The father’s application for an order for C’s return to France was granted on the basis either that C would travel back and live with his mother (as the judge found was probable) or, if she refused to travel, that he would be collected by his father and paternal aunt and, back in France, C would live at the aunt’s home. The mother now appeals against Cohen J’s determination, permission to appeal having been granted by Moylan LJ on 10 May.

Factual Background

The parents, who are both in their thirties, married in June 2010 and spent their married life in Paris, where C was born. They separated in October 2014, when C was some three or four months old. The father went to Israel in circumstances which Cohen J accepted amounted to the abandonment of mother and child. In early 2015 the mother petitioned for divorce and applied for a protection order from the Paris Family Court. The application was dismissed. But, as Cohen J held, the dismissal may be nothing to do with the merits of the application, as the father was at that time based in Israel.

By the end of 2015 the French court had settled visiting arrangements for the father at two separate weekend days each month for most of the day, provided that the paternal grandfather was also present. The father had by that time returned to Paris.

In January 2019, the Family Court in Paris confirmed the child’s residence at his mother’s home, but provided that the father should have visiting and accommodation rights on alternate weekends from Sa