Re A and B: High Court refuses to return abducted children to Cyprus under Article 13(b)

Mr Justice Poole has declined to order the summary return of two children to Cyprus under the 1980 Hague Convention, holding that the Article 13(b) grave risk defence was made out whether or not their mother returned with them.

In Re A and B (Hague Convention 1980: Art 13(b)) [2026] EWHC 1763 (Fam), the father sought the return of a girl aged 10 and a boy aged 8 after the mother retained them in England during ongoing Cypriot proceedings. She had obtained without-notice permission from the Cypriot court for a Christmas holiday in the UK, giving a guarantee of EUR 10,000 and promising to return the children by January 2026, but admitted she had never intended to do so and had misled that court. The mother resisted return on the basis of serious allegations that the father had been coercive, controlling and sexually and physically abusive towards her, and had abused the children, none of which has been tested in any court. The father denies the allegations in their entirety.

The judge declined to hear oral evidence from the mother on her stated refusal to return, applying the guidance of Peter Jackson LJ in In re R and of Sir Andrew McFarlane P in Re C that the threshold for oral evidence in these summary proceedings is high and that questioning would be likely to reopen the untested allegations. Expert evidence came from a Cypriot family law specialist, who advised that undertakings are neither given nor recognised in the Cypriot family court and that only an English court order would be readily enforceable there, and from a consultant forensic psychiatrist, who considered that the mother met the criteria for PTSD if her account were true, alongside depression and anxiety, with a risk of deterioration on return.

Applying Re E and the principles distilled by Baker LJ in Re IG, the judgement assumed the risk at its highest. The judge found he could not discount the mother's allegations of abuse against herself, noting the CPS had charged the father with controlling or coercive behaviour, and treated the children as having been exposed to domestic abuse by living in the household and through alleged controlling behaviour directed at them. He disregarded the allegations of child sexual abuse as unsubstantiated and not rationally founded.

On the pivotal question of whether the mother would return, the judge concluded that, despite her firm insistence to the contrary, she would on balance return with the children rather than accept separation, her fears for them overcoming her fears for herself. He did not regard her position as tactical. A recent ankle fracture meant any return was unlikely before September 2026.

The judge found a grave risk of harm in either scenario. Were the mother to return, the family would face instability, an absence of secure accommodation, hostile litigation, her proximity to the alleged abuser and a likely deterioration in her mental health with the loss of her English therapeutic support. Were she to remain, the children would be separated from their primary carer, uprooted from a country where they wished to stay, and placed with a father assumed for these purposes to have abused them.

The offered protective measures were held insufficient. Undertakings would not be enforceable in Cyprus, the insidious nature of the alleged coercion and control could not be met by non-molestation-style orders, and there was a real risk of the mother's arrest or separation from the children on return. The application was accordingly refused, with an alleged breach of the reporting embargo left to be dealt with separately.