Court orders child's return to Texas

A seven year-old boy removed abroad following an erroneous Hague Convention return order can be sent back to the US, the Supreme Court has unanimously held.

KL (A Child), Re [2013] UKSC 75 centred on the correct approach to be taken where a return order was overturned by the US appeals court after the child has been removed. The UK Supreme Court dismissed the father’s argument that the boy should be returned under the Hague Convention because the boy was not habitually resident in the US immediately prior to the application. However, it allowed the father’s inherent jurisdiction argument that the child was Texan and his best interests required return.

Clare Renton, of 29 Bedford Row, says: “The mother had acted within the law when she brought the child to England but when the US Court of Appeal reversed the decision her retention of the child in England was wrongful and against his interest, first, because he was a Texan child and, second, because the mother was hostile to access. 

“This case will encourage parents to argue that even when a Hague Convention application fails the court should be asked to order return to the first state in the child’s interests.  

“Eleven months in England was enough to achieve sufficient stability and integration for habitual residence to have changed from Texas to England so that an order for summary return under the Hague Convention 1980 was not an option in this case. Habitual residence remains worryingly uncertain despite two new Supreme Court decisions.”