Re M and beyond: managing return when a child has settled following abduction

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Sue Nott for her invaluable comments on earlier drafts. Any errors or omissions remain my own.

Notes

1. Incorporated into English law by section 1, Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985.

2. Under Article 13(a), Hague Convention 1980, where the person holding custody rights consented to, or acquiesced in the abduction; Article 13(b), Hague Convention 1980, where the child would be at grave risk of physical or psychological harm on return, Article 13(2), Hague Convention 1980 where the child objects to returning; Article 20, Hague Convention 1980, where returning the child would offend the fundamental rights principles of the State ordering the child's return.

3. Council Regulation No. 2201/2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility, repealing Regulation No. 1347/2000, OJ [2003] L338/1, 27 November 2003.

4. In other words, in cases where the abduction is between the UK and a non‐EU Member State who is a signatory to the Hague Convention 1980.

5. There was argument over whether the removal was actually wrongfully in breach of custody rights, but it was found that it was a wrongful removal meaning that the return remedy would operate.