CA-2025-000682 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1058

The judge did not give a narrative of the striking family history.

The parents married in 2009, when the father was 25 and the mother 17. They lived in Kabul. Their daughter A was born in 2011 and is now aged 14. Their daughter B was born in 2015 and is now aged 9.

In 2014, the father met L, who grew up in England and lives here. Their relationship was initially pursued in the Middle East and they developed a plan to set up home together in this country.

The father first visited England in 2017. In the same year, he made a dishonest application for leave to settle in the UK as L’s partner. He presented himself as unmarried and without dependent children. The application was rejected, probably because records showed him to be married to the mother. He then appealed or asked for reconsideration, producing a divorce certificate, and leave was granted. The judge found that the divorce certificate was a forgery. There is no appeal from that finding.

In February 2019, the father arrived in the UK and set up home with L. On 29 March 2019, they had a large wedding here. At a later date, solicitors acting for the father produced a letter dated 31 March 2019, purportedly from the mother, requesting that the children be allowed to join the father “in order to facilitate them with good education and lifestyle”. The judge found that the letter was a forgery. There is no appeal from that finding.

The mother was unaware of any of this activity on the part of the father and L. She and the children did not become aware of the father’s affair and purported marriage until 2020. The father was spending time in Afghanistan with the family and time abroad on business or with L. Until mid-2022, the children remained with their mother.

The judge did not need to make a finding about whether the father was validly married to L, but he recorded that the mother considered herself to be still married to the father.

Nonetheless, in November 2021, the father obtained leave to remain in the UK based on his family/private life.

Next, in April 2022, the father applied for a visa to bring the children to this country. He stated that he had sole responsibility for the children and that they lived with an aunt. He did not tell the mother he was doing this, and in the application he referred to her by an incorrect surname. L lobbied her MP in support of the application. The father produced a letter dated 12 May 2022 purporting to come from a hospital therapist who said he had been treating the children. It is a strikingly partisan letter, pleading for the children to be placed in an environment where they would be safe from physical and psychological abuse from their mother. When the mother became aware of it, she produced a letter dated 9 March 2024 from the dean of the hospital stating that it was false. The mother asked the judge to find that this was another fake document, but he made no finding about it.

In May 2022, again unbeknownst to the mother, the father made an application to the authorities in Pakistan, in which she and the children were also named, for a visa to visit that country. The judge did not consider this to support the father’s case that mother had agreed to the children going to Pakistan.

In the summer of 2022, the father told the mother that he was taking the children for a medical checkup in Kabul. Instead, he took them to Pakistan with a view to taking them on to the UK once he had obtained a visa for them. They remained there for three months and on the mother’s account (the judge made no finding) they had no contact with her during this period. After the mother contacted the British Embassy in Islamabad to say that she did not consent, a visa for the children was refused, and the father returned the children to Kabul.

The judge found, contrary to the father’s case, that this first removal from Afghanistan had taken place without the mother’s consent. There is no appeal from that finding.

On 27 April 2023, despite the mother’s position, the father by some means managed to obtain leave for the children to enter the UK as dependent children.

On 4 June 2023, in the course of an argument about the children, the father assaulted the mother, injuring her face. The father denied it, claiming that the injury had been caused by a member of the mother’s own family, but the judge found that he had assaulted her and that the children, who were at home, would have been aware of it. There is no appeal from that finding. The children have never spoken about this assault on their mother.

About two weeks later there was a family council, or Jirga, involving paternal and maternal family members. The father’s wish to remove the children to England was discussed and rejected. The father denied that there had been a Jirga, properly so called, but the judge accepted that his plan had been rejected by the families. There is no appeal from that finding.

However, on 5 July 2023, the father took the children out of school and brought them to England. The mother has not seen them since that day. She did not discover that they were in this country until August 2023 and some further time passed before she knew where they were living. The father’s case was that the children’s departure was planned and agreed with the mother. The judge found that, on the contrary, the mother had not consented to the children’s second removal from Afghanistan either. There is no appeal from that fundamental finding.

There was no contemporaneous evidence before the judge to suggest that, before the removal of the children, their relationship with their mother had been anything other than normal. The mother’s case was that she had occasionally chastised them physically in a way that is permitted in Afghanistan, but she denied having assaulted them.

It is a notable feature that, since their arrival in England, the children have refused to have any form of contact with their mother, and have not expressed any regret about leaving their home and family in Afghanistan.

In August 2023, there was a fraught exchange of text messages between the parents after a relative had sent the mother a photograph of the children going to a party in England, and after they had refused to speak to her on the telephone. The judge quoted these translated messages from the mother to the father:

“And Allah will never keep such people happy in their entire life.

By God I will neither think of such a child nor will I ever remember them.

Keep them with yourself.

Even if you bring them here I will spit on their faces.

May Allah never give such a rude child to anyone.”

The father deployed this to indicate that the mother did not want the children back and did not care about them. The mother said she had been overwhelmed by emotion. The judge did not find the August 2023 text messages helpful on the question of consent, and he accepted that it was “just that – an emotional outburst.” He went on, however, to say that it struck him as “informative as to the mother’s lack of control of her emotions and a remarkably easy descent into rage with the children.”

More recently, in October 2024, A began to be treated by CAMHS in England, receiving individual and family therapy sessions. Despite the existence of legal proceedings, the mother only became aware of this on reading this letter dated 21 February 2025 from the psychotherapist to the parties, which (as with other quotations) I anonymise:

“I am writing to inform you that A is being treated at … CAMHS for trauma which has had a detrimental impact on her mood, home life, appetite and sleep and ability to focus on school work. A regularly experiences repeating flashbacks and nightmares. The trauma is related to previous physical and emotional abuse and neglect at the hands of her mother in Afghanistan.

A has been having individual sessions which commenced in October 2024. Family Therapy appointments are offered alongside the individual appointments.

A lives in perpetual fear of her mother entering this country and harming both her and her family. There is a limit to the effectiveness of the therapy offered to address her trauma whilst the court case continues, alongside the possibility that her mother may be given permission to enter the country.”

Based on this lengthy history, stretching back to before B’s birth, the mother submitted to the judge that the father and L had perpetrated a ruthless and premeditated abduction, stranded her in Afghanistan, persistently lied about what they had done, and thoroughly indoctrinated the children against her. By then, her preference was for the children to remain living in England on the condition that she could have a relationship with them. She had made two unsuccessful visa applications to visit this country.