S (A Child) , Re

Lord Justice Thorpe:

This appeal arises out of proceedings before the Court of First Instance in Milan which resulted in an order, the summary of which I take from the skeleton argument of Mr Michael Nicholls QC who is counsel for the respondent to the appeal. The Court of First Instance directed that the custody of S, the only child of the parties, be assigned to the Municipality of Milan. The order required the mother to return S immediately to Italy to enable S to be placed in foster care. Alternatively the order provided that the Municipality should arrange for S to be placed with her mother, subject to her election, in a protected environment, to arrange a therapeutic programme and to organise meetings between S and the father.

That sad order has of course a family background. The parties met and married. S was conceived as a result of assisted reproductive techniques. The relationship between her parents broke down even before her birth. S has always been in her mother’s care. Her mother has become convinced that S has been interfered with sexually by her father. She has not complied with arrangements for contact between S and her father. Accordingly orders for contact have been made within the Italian proceedings, it being common ground that the Italian jurisdiction has priority despite the fact that mother and child are habitually resident in this jurisdiction. So the Italian order must be seen in that context. No doubt the objective of the Italian judge was to achieve a relationship between daughter and father no matter what draconian provisions were necessary to achieve that result.

The order was in fact made on 26 January 2009 by the Tribunale Ordinario in Milan. That being an order capable of immediate registration and enforcement under the provisions of the regulation of Brussels II bis, it is perhaps almost inevitable that the father applied in this jurisdiction for permission to register the order. The effect of registration would be to achieve enforcement without exequatur , as though it were an order made by a domestic court within this jurisdiction. That application came before Macur J, who on 24 February granted permission for registration pursuant to article 28(2) of the Regulations. By paragraph four of her order, she provided that the mother might seek to appeal, had one month in which so to do and granted a stay until the expiration of the time for filing of mother’s notice of appeal.

It seems that as further opportunity for the