Introduction
1.I am concerned with the welfare of H who was born in the UK on 10 May 2015. She is now 7 years old. Her mother is M who is now a British citizen but was born and brought up in The Gambia. H believes her father to be F who is English. F and M married in The Gambia but are now separated and divorced. F is registered as H’s father on her British birth certificate.2.H is represented in these proceedings by her children’s guardian Sarah Smith. Her predecessor as guardian made an application on 1 June 2021 for a Female Genital Mutilation Protection Order under Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2013. On 2 June 2021 the court made a protection order in standard terms to prevent M subjecting H to female genital mutilation (“FGM”). That order was not objected to and continues today and it is common ground that I should continue that order.3.The court on 2 June 2021 also made an order, which was neither agreed or opposed by M, preventing her from removing H from England and Wales until further order. While M does not seek an order discharging that world-wide travel ban, she seeks a variation of it which would give her a specific permission to travel to The Gambia with H from 29 March to 16 April of this year.4.There has been extensive litigation between F and M in respect of H’s contact with F. Although F’s application for a child arrangements order for contact was formally resolved by an order dated 9 November 2021 providing that H have overnight contact with F on every other weekend from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, that contact quickly broke down and H has not enjoyed face to face contact with F since January 2022. 5.With the consent of all 3 parties, I made it clear at an earlier case management hearing that I would investigate the issue of contact at this final hearing and, if necessary to promote H’s best interests, make further provision for H’s time with F. The parties reached interim agreement that contact between H and her father would resume by remote means. 6.Shortly before this hearing, paternity tests confirmed that F was not in fact H’s father. This affected case management, potentially introduced new risk factors for the experts to consider and caused considerable anguish and soul-searching to both M and F. H has not been informed that F is not, in fact, her father, and it is common ground that she should not be told without specific expert guidance and support.