When couples separate, most of the arrangements regarding children can usually be resolved between the parents amicably. However, in rare cases, the relationship between the parents may have broken down to such an extent that one parent feels compelled to abduct their child rather than risk losing them.
In this article Melissa Cunningham family law expert with IMD Solicitors explains what to do if your former partner has taken your child somewhere without your permission and is refusing to return them.
What is child abduction
In simple terms, child abduction occurs where a child is wrongfully removed by one parent from the care of another.
There is no need for the child to have been taken abroad for abduction to have occurred, and indeed many abductions reported to the police and courts arise within the UK.
Examples of child abduction could include:
taking a child on holiday but failing to return them when agreed;
having a child to stay for the weekend in accordance with an agreed contact plan but failing to hand them back at the end of the weekend; or
collecting a child from school without permission and flying them abroad.
If you know or suspect that your child has been abducted, it is essential that you notify the police immediately and take urgent legal advice.
The role of the police in child abduction
If you know where your child is, the police may be able to assist in securing their return by putting you in touch with your former partner so you can talk things through. They can also carry out a ‘safe and well’ check to ensure that your child is in no immediate danger. The police are usually reluctant to do more than this, particularly if there is no court order in place setting out who the child should live with. This is because, without such an order, both parents are deemed to have equal rights, which makes it difficult for the police to determine what they should do.
Why you need a lawyer
If your child has been moved to another part of the UK by the other parent, even if their precise address is not known, your lawyer can help you make an urgent application to the court for their immediate return, pending a full hearing by the court to determine what should happen to your child in the longer term.
Most law firms specialising in family law have out-of-hours emergency contact numbers and a judge will hear cases outside of usual court opening hours if the matter is urgent.
If the whereabouts of your child is not known, your solicitor can apply for an order from the court which authorises an officer of the High Court to locate and collect them.
If there is a risk that your child may be taken abroad imminently, your solicitor can request a passport order, which permits a High Court officer to seize the travel documents of both the child and their potential abductor to stop them leaving the country.
If the court makes either a location order or a passport order, then an automatic port alert will be included which warns staff at airports and ferry terminals to be on the lookout for your child. Their name will be included on the child abduction warning list for the next 28 days and a message will be sent to all UK ports instructing the police to see if they can locate your child and their abductor.
What happens next?
Once the child has been returned, the court will consider the case in more detail and will ultimately make a decision as to which parent the child should live with and agree arrangements for them to see the other parent.
What if my child has already been taken abroad?
The procedure for the recovery of a child who has already been taken abroad depends on whether or not the country to which they have been taken is a signatory to the Hague Convention:
if the country is a signatory, there are mechanisms in place to ensure the return of your child to the UK so that a court here can decide arrangements for the future; but
if the country is not a signatory, your ability to secure your child’s return will depend on local laws and whether the courts in the country concerned wish to deal with the matter themselves.
For more advice on child abduction, or on any other family law matter, please contact Melissa Cunningham on 0333 358 3062 or email info@imd.co.uk.
This is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Please note that the law may have changed since the date this post was published.
F v F - Acted for a German husband in a complex financial remedy matter. He decided to instruct IMD Solicitors after he had lost trust in his previously instructed solicitors and feared that he would not achieve a favourable outcome from the proceedings. The relevant assets were spread across the globe with some located in the UK (including a multi-million pound business), Gibraltar, Spain, Dubai, and Poland. The overall value of assets exceeded £24 million. The husband had been cut off from the matrimonial assets and excluded from control of the business that had been established by his family. The case involved the instruction of numerous experts, for business valuations, Capital Gains Tax reports, and opinions on the enforcement of orders in foreign jurisdictions, and dealing with several applications, including applications for orders to freeze assets, prevent the disposition of assets, for the joinder of parties, and to litigate conduct issues. The final result exceeded the client’s expectations.
L v L - We were instructed by a mother in a complex international children matter. She was required by orders of the UK courts to return the child to the UK from Poland. She had travelled with the child to Poland but, following unsuccessful application to extend her stay there in August 2017, she decided not to return to the UK because the child disclosed sexual abuse by a member of the paternal family and the father. In September 2018, the Polish court dismissed the father’s Hague Convention application for the child's return on the basis of Article 13(b), a decision which the father appealed. In March 2019, the father applied to the UK High Court for an order for the child’s return pursuant to the procedure set out in Article 11(6) – (8) of the Brussels IIA Regulation. Despite the father's unsuccessful Hague Convention application in Poland, the UK court ordered the return of the child. Article 11 does not allow the court of the returning country much discretion. After all of this, the mother instructed IMD Solicitors to apply to discharge the orders of the UK Court for the return of the child. Even in the face of the fact that most applications to discharge such return orders fail, we succeeded. We are currently awaiting a decision in the UK courts on a further application for the transfer of jurisdiction to the Polish courts where the mother resides with the child.
G v P - We represent a Spanish mother in respect of an urgent application for a Child Arrangements Order and Specific Issue Order in the UK seeking the relocation of the child to Spain. This was after the return of the child to the UK under Hague Convection proceedings which this mother lost in Spain.
She was asking for an order for the relocation of the child back to Spain and an urgent interim Child Arrangements Order to allow her to see the child pending the final outcome of the UK proceedings. IMD successfully argued that, regardless of the return of the child to the UK under the Hague Convention, the mother should be allowed unsupervised overnight contact with the child. We were delighted to be able to secure her contact with the child for Christmas and she said that it was the best Christmas gift she could have wished for. The outcome of the application for the relocation is pending.
S v V - We currently represent the father in Child Arrangements Order proceedings issued by the mother in relation to variation of a UK order made in the face of numerous other international proceedings. He is an Italian National who has been living in France for the last 20 years and the mother is a Lithuanian national. The child is now 11 years old and proceedings concerning the child have been ongoing in various jurisdictions for the majority of the child`s life. Contested divorce proceedings including child arrangements took place in Monaco. The French Court and authorities were also involved, and various proceedings had been ongoing between parties since 2013 in France and Monaco.
The parties’ divorce was pronounced in Monaco. Thereafter, in December 2020, the mother submitted an application to relocate to England with the child, and the relocation took place in June 2021. Upon relocation, the she lodged a child arrangement order application, seeking to register a judgment made in Monaco and to vary the same in respect of the contact arrangements between the father and the child. The father seeks for the child’s return to Monaco.
Due to the parties’ mutual allegations and the associated international elements, various authorities and courts that have been involved in the case, the local authority has become involved with the family and a guardian has been instructed to represent the child in the UK proceedings. At present, these proceedings in England are ongoing and the outcome of the professional reports regarding the family are awaited.
P v P - We have acted for the Respondent Husband in relation to the financial remedy proceedings in the UK. The parties had various assets in the UK and Romania consisting mainly of the portfolio of properties but conduct issues were raised by the Wife due to a business of the Husband over which she had lost control and her allegations of dissipation of assets. The value of assets excluding the business were in a region of £3 million.
K v K - We act in financial remedy proceedings for a wife who is a Polish national. The matter's complexity mainly comes from a dispute between the parties around land in Poland. Its value was initially in dispute but was then assessed by a joint expert to be in the region of half a million pounds. The total assets in this case are estimated to be worth over £1 million. The land in Poland is a subject to contract with a third party and is being leased as a photovoltaic (solar) farm. The division of the land to achieve an equal share of the assets is complicated due to the contract in place and plans for the future use of the land. Currently the parties are awaiting a final hearing but efforts are being made to reach a settlement with the aid of alternative dispute resolution and in order to save the parties money and avoid further delays.
R v O - We acted pro bono and worked together with a law firm in Poland to ensure that the Costa Rican Mother regains access to her child. The Mother's only child was abducted from the UK in 2014. The Mother was successful with the abduction case and the UK family courts ordered the return of the child. The orders were recognised in Poland but unfortunately due to various issues with the Mother's immigration status and court's delays in Poland, the orders were never enforced. The Mother was facing removal from the UK and prospects of never seeing her child again. We have corresponded with various courts in Poland dealing with international abduction matters and we decided that an application for contact should be issued rather than any proceedings for further enforcement of the orders, as the Mother had not seen the child for around 7 years. At the same we secured the Mother's stay in the UK making successful outside of immigration rules application to extend her stay. We now receive regular photos from the Mother with her daughter, as face to face contact is taking place. We helped to secure an order of the Polish courts for the Mother to see the child regularly in person, whilst when she instructed us she was facing a prospect of never seeing her child again and being deported to Costa Rica.
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