Re C: High Court orders second Hague Convention return to Portugal

The High Court has ordered the summary return to Portugal of a twelve year old girl in an unusual second set of proceedings under the 1980 Hague Convention, rejecting her mother's arguments that return would expose the child to grave risk or that the child's own objections should prevent it.

The case, heard by Michael Jones KC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, concerned a British family who had previously lived in Portugal, where welfare proceedings involving the child, referred to as C, remain ongoing before the Portuguese courts. The mother had already been the subject of one successful application for C's return in 2025, brought by the father after she failed to bring C back from a Christmas visit to England as directed by the Portuguese court. That first application was allowed by Williams J, subject to protective undertakings, and the mother eventually complied after an unsuccessful attempt to have the order set aside.

Following C's return to Portugal, the Portuguese court in May 2026 directed a transfer of C's residence to her father, having found the mother unable or unwilling to support contact between C and her father despite ongoing court orders. Shortly afterwards, the mother removed C from Portugal without the father's knowledge and brought her back to England, prompting the father's second application under the Convention and a direct request from the Portuguese authorities for the English court's assistance in securing C's return.

The mother, representing herself, resisted the application on two grounds: that return would expose C to a grave risk of harm under Article 13(b) of the Convention, based on a series of allegations against the father, and that C's own strong objections to returning, and to seeing her father, should lead the court to exercise its discretion against return.

The judgement rejected both defences. On the grave risk argument, the court noted that many of the mother's allegations had already been placed before the Portuguese court, which had nonetheless concluded that a transfer of residence to the father was in C's best interests, and found that comity required deference to that ongoing welfare assessment rather than a parallel enquiry in England. The court found that undertakings from the father, mirroring those accepted in the earlier proceedings, would adequately manage any residual risk pending the next hearing in Portugal.

On C's objections, the judgement accepted that C had expressed clear opposition to returning and to contact with her father, and that she had reached an age and maturity at which her views should be taken into account. However, drawing on evidence from the Cafcass officer who had met C on two occasions a year apart, the court found C's views had become markedly more negative over that period in a manner consistent with the influence of her mother, including a recorded conversation in which the mother had told C, in her hearing, that her father had previously assaulted her. The judge concluded he could not be satisfied C's objections were authentically her own, and that refusing return would in effect reward a second wrongful removal and frustrate the Portuguese court's efforts to rebuild C's relationship with her father.

A return order was made, with the father providing funding and undertakings to ease the transition, and directions made for a passport photograph to be provided, with the prospect of a collection order held in reserve should the mother fail to comply.