FD24P00235 - [2025] EWHC 952 (Fam)

In June 2020 a further alleged incident took place in Colorado. Once again, the cause, nature and extent of that incident is in stark dispute between the parties. On the mother’s case, having located the mother and children in Colorado after they fled Miami, the father attended the mother’s property in Colorado and assaulted and sexually abused her and the children. On the father’s case, he attended what had always been the family home having separated from the mother but believing the mother to be sick and his children to be hungry, he having been persuaded by the mother through multiple messages that she was ill and needed assistance. I have already found, for the reasons set out above, that the mother did not ‘flee’ Miami to escape the father, but rather travelled with him and the children to live in Colorado as a family. I have likewise found that the mother has fabricated the previous allegation against the father that he assaulted the mother and sexually abused Q in April 2017. It is important to note at this point, that it is in relation to this alleged incident where the forensic difficulties caused by the inability of the court to obtain a complete set of disclosure from the jurisdiction of the United States have their greatest potential impact.

In the foregoing context, the mother now seeks the following findings in respect of the alleged incident in Colorado in June 2020 (which do not cover all of the allegations set out in the mother’s evidence and/or contain additions that are not articulated and differences when compared to the mother’s various accounts):

The mother alleges a number of very serious acts perpetrated by the father throughout the evening of 23 June 2020 and following through until the morning of 24 June. However, and once again, the mother has offered widely differing accounts, each of which contain inconsistencies and elaborations over time:

Cross-examined by Mr Gration, the father asserted that he arrived at the family’s apartment between 9 and 10pm on 23 June 2020, opened the door only to see no one was home after which he left the apartment and encountered the mother and children outside nearby Wendy’s. Once at the family home, the father describes a relatively uneventful evening in which the family ate food together and the father played video games with the children until approximately midnight after which the father fell asleep on the sofa. When the father awoke at approximately 6am, he was unable to find the keys for his truck or one of his mobile phones. The father and children attempted to look for the keys, however, were unable to find them and as a result the father took a taxi to his truck and had his employer provide another key. He then left on an interstate delivery.

The father asserts that the mother’s allegations regarding the events of 23 and 24 June 2020 are fabricated and that the mother had previously informed him that she would find a way to put him in prison, to never see his children again and that she would make up any allegation necessary and that all it would take was a single phone call to the police who would believe her as she is a woman. The messages emanating from the mother’s telephone number do contain a number of such threats. On 12 June 2020 there is a message stating “I am going to file a report”. There are further messages stating that the father’s employer would be approached and pictures of the father’s place of work and his manager’s car. On 15 June 2020 a message was sent from the mother’s number regarding the paternal grandmother saying “I hope [the paternal grandmother] dies of cancer”. The father states that the children reported to him that they were being shown films by the mother in which the father was being undressed by women, causing him to worry she was showing the children pornographic material.

As I have noted, the father further asserts that he attended the mother’s property on 23 June 2020 at her request. Once again, the text messages received by the father from the mother’s number prior to that date show attempts to contact him. On 18 June 2020 there were repeated calls from the mother’s number, sometimes every three of four minutes. The messages evolve from pleas to call to an assertion she is “very sick”. The mother’s sister called the father on 22 June 2020 telling him that the mother was very ill and asking him to telephone her. The court has a recording of that voicemail:

“I wanted to tell you that if you could please call [the mother], she is really really sick. If you could please call her or will you let (inaudible) have a look please call her she is not feeling very well, she is really really sick so try calling her.”

On 23 June 2020 the evidence before the court indicates that the father was receiving a very high number of calls from the mother’s telephone number. The father asserts that on 23 June 2020 he spoke with mother who said she was ill and asked him to attend, collect the children and take her to hospital. The evidence before the court also demonstrates that the father started to receive calls from P, saying the children were hungry and crying from hunger. The court has a recording of two voicemail messages the father contends are from P. In the first she states she is hungry and that Q is crying. In the second she states “do you want me to die of hungries”. In cross-examination, the mother denied that it is P’s voice that can be heard on the voicemails. On 23 June 2020, there is also a further message to the father from the mother’s number stating “I am very sick”... “call me please”. Within this context, I note that on the 911 call made by the mother on 23 June 2020 she informed the operator without prompting that she had texted the father to come to the home as she was ill and that he did so. This is consistent with the father’s later account to the Colorado police.

With respect to the mother’s allegation that the father attempted to rape P on 24 June 2020, and in respect of her later allegation that he attempted to rape Q in Miami in 2017, the following further matters in the evidence before the court are also of note. A message to the father from the mother on 17 March 2018 attaching a video taken by the mother of both children in the bath. In the incident checklist in support of her application for a civil protection order on 26 June 2020, the mother left blank the box which lists the following types of abuse: “Threat by physical or sexual abuse to children’ and ‘Sexually abusing children in household”. The hospital report from 24 June 2020 relates mother stating he hit the children but there is no mention of sexual abuse. When giving an account to medics in Colorado on 24 June 2020, in answer to the question “Does he threaten to harm your children?” the mother replied “he hit my son last night and hit my daughter this morning”. The mother made no mention of sexual abuse of either child.

As I will come to, when spoken to by Colorado Human Services, P denied sexual abuse when speaking to the social worker. When Q was spoken to by Colorado Human Services, the social worker asked if anyone has touched his private parts and Q said no. Following the alleged incident on 24 June 2020, there were multiple calls from P to the father’s phone on 5 July 2020, including volumes of heart and kiss emojis. During this period, the father states that P called the father contending that the mother was hitting her and Q and that she had killed their pet guinea pigs.

In addition to the mother’s various accounts, the court has some of the medical records arising from the examination of the mother on 24 June 2020. As with the alleged incident in 2017, it is difficult to identify from the photographs contained in the records any definitive injuries to the mother, particularly having regard to the alleged ferocity of the assault described by the mother in some of her accounts. Within this context, there is no forensic evidence demonstrating that the marks documented are likely to be the result of inflicted trauma. Whilst the medical records do contain a list of alleged injuries, that list is drawn from the mother’s self-reporting and is not accompanied by any medical opinion confirming or refuting an inflicted injury. Records completed at 11.03am record negative for facial swelling, negative for redness, negative for choking and negative for gait problem and “No overlying evidence of trauma to the back”. Whilst right parietal tenderness and soft tissue swelling is recorded, the mother herself does not attribute that to the alleged assault. It is important to note that the medical records confirm that bleeding was noted from the mother’s vagina, although whilst the mother attributes this to a sexual assault by the father there is again no medical evidence as to the cause. The father contends that the mother had bleeding issues and that she was anaemic as a result of those health issues. The documents indicate that the mother told a police officer that she was anaemic in response to the officer being concerned she looked unwell.

Finally with respect to the alleged incident on 24 June 2020, both children were spoken to regarding the events on that date. A police officer spoke to P at the home, and recorded the exchange as follows:

“I asked P if her father, had touch her mother or her. P who was not upset but very happy, told me, “No”. I asked what happened to her mother? P said “She fell down and hit her head”. I asked P if her father pushed her down? P said, “No”. P went to advised her father was not even there when her mother fell down and again confirmed that [the father] never touched, [the mother]. P said her father never touched her unless she was in trouble and only grabbed her arm to yell at her. I looked at her arms and saw no indication of injury. P again confirmed she was not touched that day.”

And:

“I [went] down to the ambulance and spoke to [the mother] who was still dizzy and had upst stomach...When I told her what P told me, [the mother] did not argue the matter, but just said in the past [the father] had threatened her with a gun. This was the Miami case.”

P was also spoken to by Child Services on 26 June 2020. Child Services observed that neither P or Q exhibited any marks or bruises. P gave an account that the father called her mother and said that he is coming to the house, that she went with her mother and brother to get food, that the father was outside and he went straight to her and her brother, grabbed their hands, and took them back home. P stated that her father pushed her mother and slapped her in the face and then went up and then rested on the bed. She said her mother took her father’s phone and locked herself in the bathroom. P stated that in the morning they were woken by their father asking for his phone and car keys. P said she didn’t take his stuff and that her father was really mean to her mother and dad was angry. P reported that her dad made a mess in the room and he said that he will come back for them (it is not clear whether this referred to the keys). Q was also spoken and is recorded as saying no-one had touched his private parts.

It is clear that the account given by P to the police officer at the home was relayed to medical staff at the hospital, the Patient Care Report of the hospital to which the mother was transported recording that “[Aurora Police Department] states they also spoke with pt’s 7 yo daughter, who was on scene, who was adamant that pt’s husband did not hit pt”. Matters are, however, complicated by the fact that the matter appears to have been reinvestigated by a different police officer, Officer M who, on 25 June 2020, was asked to follow up with the mother after the mother informed police that she had “additional information” to give officers and wanted to talk to a female officer instead of a male officer.

The material available from Officer M’s investigation results in a divergence of accounts between the Colorado police officers responsible regarding what P said at the scene, albeit that that material is itself problematic. In her affidavit of probable cause and her Investigator’s Report, Officer M recounts what she says she saw when she reviewed the first officer’s body worn camera footage. On Officer M’s account, the footage does not record any allegation by the mother, who informed the first officer she had been feeling dizzy for the last couple of days. Again, the court has not had the benefit of seeing that footage and it is not clear whether Officer M is describing the totality of what is seen or only excerpts. However, in respect of P, Officer M relates the contents of the first officer’s body worn footage as follows:

“P was happy and jumping up and down. She said her mom was dizzy and she fell down. Officer S asked P to come into the living room area and talk to him. He asked her if mommy and daddy got into a fight and she said, “Yeah, daddy was mean to mommy. He made a big mess in me and my brother’s room”. Officer S asked her if daddy touched mommy and she said, “Yeah”.

Officer S asked what her dad did and she said, “he had two guns and said, hey, don’t go nowhere and then mommy fell down on the steps”. Officer S said “He didn’t touch mommy or push mommy down did he?” P responded, “Yeah, he didn’t”. P said “Yesterday, we were going to get some Wendy’s, he was calling...” Officer S asked her if mommy just fell down and P said year...

... Officer S asked her if daddy touched her and she said, “yeah, remember he use to grab me really hard.” (while using one hand to grab the other arm). Office S asked if that was today and she said no.

P said, “And then, my mom, we stopped at Wendy’s and my dad said soo much, and her dad called sand said WHERE ARE YOU, like that” (as she yelled) Officer S asked he was there of if he called her on the phone. P said he called her on the phone yesterday and he was really mad and whey they went home her mom fell on the stairs.”

Officer M’s affidavit of probable cause also recounts the contents of forensic interviews undertaken with the children. The children were subsequently interviewed by an organisation called “Sungate” on 9 July 2020. Unfortunately, it was not possible to obtain recordings of these interviews in a form that can be viewed on domestic software, nor a transcript. In the circumstances, the only record of them in the papers is in Officer M’s report. In the circumstances the court is reliant on the incomplete, hearsay accounts of the children’s interviews. In addition to the court having no transcript (and therefore no information on what questions were put to the children and in what manner), at the time of their interview the children had been in the care of their mother for 15 days following the alleged incident and prior to their forensic interviews, although when asked by the interviewer P denied that her mother had talked to her about what had happened. The father alleges that the mother threw the children’s guinea pigs in a bin as a means of threatening them. The mother alleges the father threw them out of the window.

Officer M highlights the following aspects of the forensic interview of P on 9 July 2020 with respect to the alleged incident on 24 June 2020:

It is apparent from the affidavit of probable cause that Q was also interviewed. Again no transcript but following matters set out by Office M noting that “Q is very young and hard to understand”:

Following her investigation, Office M filed the case with the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s Office against the father on charges of third degree assault, unlawful sexual contact, child abuse and domestic violence. A warrant for his arrest was issued on 20 July 2020. The father was arrested on 5 August 2020 having handed himself in voluntarily and was remanded in custody thereafter. At a hearing in the criminal court on 6 August 2020 a Mandatory Restraining Order (‘MRO’) was made against the father. On 1 September 2020, the US court granted a Permanent Civil Protection Order (‘PPO’) based on the “preponderance of the evidence that the [father] had committed the acts constituting grounds for the issuance of a civil protection order”. The father was not present at these proceedings, having been incarcerated, although he was represented by a criminal attorney. The court granted ‘parenting time’ to the father, but given the MRO, the civil court recommended no contact between the father and the children. The criminal case against the father was dismissed on 17 September 2021 as the DA was unable to secure the appearance of the mother, who by that time had abducted the children to the jurisdiction of England and did not wish to give evidence. The father had been remanded in custody for a period of approximately 14 months. The charges against the father were expunged from his criminal record by way of a court order.

Having regard to the evidence I have summarised in some detail above, and once again reminding myself of the caution that is required when evaluating the evidence of an alleged victim of domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour, I am satisfied that the mother is not able establish the findings she seeks with respect to the 23/24 June 2020 on the balance of probabilities (findings which I note do not cover all of the allegations now set out in the mother’s evidence and/or contain additions that are not articulated by her when compared to the mother’s various accounts).

I am not satisfied that the father attended uninvited and held the mother and children hostage in the family home on 23/24 June 2020. The evidence available to the court clearly shows that the mother made extensive efforts to summon the father to the property on 23 June 2020. I am satisfied on the basis of the messages on the father’s phone, including photographs of his workplace and manager’s car, that the mother had threatened to get the father into trouble, apparently in response to her displeasure at him failing to come home when she requested, as corroborated by the evidence of the paternal grandmother that she would receive communications in 2018 from the mother stating the father better show up soon. The mother’s message to the father at around this time that she hoped the paternal grandmother “dies of cancer” gives an insight into the mother’s emotional state. Within this context, the evidence shows that the mother’s attempts to get the father to attend the property were extensive, and extended to the mother’s sister seeking to convince the father to attend the family home on the grounds that the mother was ill. Indeed, the mother’s own words corroborate these conclusions, she stating on the 911 call made by the mother on 24 June 2020 that she had texted the father to come to the home as she was ill and that he did so. These attempts by the mother to get the father to attend the family home spanned a number of days and the children were also involved in calling the father. In this regard, I accept the oral evidence of the father that:

“I had come to take her to the hospital. She refused to go to the hospital, I suspect that she wanted to make me go to the house, because she talked about our relationship and once all my belongings were gone, she just wanted me to go to the house as I had been avoided (sic) her”.

I am likewise not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the father physically assaulted the mother when he was at the property, at the mother’s request, from 23 to 24 June 2020. I cannot discount the possibility that angry words were exchanged between the father and the mother when the father arrived on 23 June 2020, in the context of the messages he had received from the children, and/or on the morning of 24 June 2020 when he could not locate his phone or keys when he had to return to work. As I have noted, messages received by the father from the mother’s number indicate that relations between the parents were increasingly strained. However, I am satisfied that the mother has embellished any verbal exchanges in this regard when further alleging a physical assault, attempted rape and the sexual abuse of P.

As set out above, the mother’s allegation of physical assault by the father on 23 and 24 June 2020 is wholly inconsistent across her various accounts. In some accounts, he does not feature as a perpetrator, with the mother sustaining a fall as a result of being ill. In some accounts the father accosts the family outside the apartment and compels them to return to it. In other accounts, he comes to the door and forces his way in. On the mother’s various accounts, the father’s initial presentation varies from being aggressive and violent to sad, pleading and threatening self-harm. Her initial accounts do not involve furniture but evolve to having been forced against a kitchen counter or dressing room table. The medical examination that was negative for facial swelling, negative for redness, negative for choking, negative for gait problem and of no overlying evidence of trauma to the back, and the absence of any forensic evidence demonstrating that the marks documented are likely to be the result of inflicted trauma, is inconsistent with the alleged ferocity of the assault described by the mother in some of her accounts.

I have considered very carefully the mother’s allegation that the father sexually assaulted her by penetrating her from behind with his penis causing bleeding, rupture and pain. As with her other allegations, her many changes of account need to be treated with caution in circumstances where it would not be reasonable to expect a victim of sexual assault to have a clear and consistent recall of what transpired, especially of events said to have taken place nearly five years ago. However, once again the inconsistencies in the mother’s various accounts are stark. Having evaluated the evidence as a whole, I am not able to find on the balance of probabilities that the father sexually assaulted the mother on 23/24 June 2020.

It is clear from the medical records that the mother had a pad that evidenced bleeding from her vagina when examined in hospital. Against this evidence however, the mother’s account has again varied. Her pleaded allegation is that the father sexually assaulted her by penetrating her from behind with his penis causing bleeding, rupture and pain. However, in her early accounts to police and medical staff, the mother does not make an allegation of rape, save for a passing reference to the 911 operator that the father had been “doing stuff to her down there”. The mother’s application for a civil protection order in June 2020 contains no reference to having been subjected to a sexual assault. Only when the DA asks the mother in her interview to clarify matters does she make an allegation of sexual assault. In her oral evidence, which I bear in mind was given five years after the event, the mother’s account oscillated between denying the father had inserted his penis and alleging that he used his hand to asserting she had been raped and could not remember how many times.

I acknowledge that P gave an account that the father was pulling her mother’s pants down, that she stated later that her father was hugging and kissing her mother and she was telling him to leave her alone and that the father was trying to push her pants down and that he chased her mother and she pushed him away from her. However, as I will come to in more detail below, there are significant difficulties with P’s accounts. In particular, the court is reliant on the incomplete, hearsay accounts of the children’s interviews in which P is said to have made this statement. The interviews were conducted when the children had been in the care of their mother for 15 days following the alleged incident and prior to their forensic interview. Further, the interview had occurred as a result of the mother stating she wished to provide further information to the police.

In the foregoing circumstances, and considering the evidence as a whole, I am satisfied that the evidence cannot support a finding on the balance of probabilities that the father raped the mother on 23/24 June 2020. Further, and as I will come to below, I consider it likely that the mother has fabricated that allegation.

I am further unable to find on the balance of probabilities that the father threatened to shoot the children and the mother with a gun he had with him on 23 and 24 June 2024. Once again, there are real difficulties with the credibility of the mother’s evidence on this matter. As can be seen from the summary of evidence above, the mother’s allegation that the father brought guns with him and threatened the mother and/or the children have been entirely inconsistent. The mother told the 911 operator on 24 June 2020 that the father did not have guns but threatened to bring them next time. By contrast, she informed the paramedics that P had been threatened by the father with a gun. In her various accounts, the mother both asserts that she did not herself see the father threaten P with a gun and that the father was seen by her to threaten P with a gun when he heard the police coming. Some of the mother’s assertions contain references to matters the court has already found to have been fabricated, the mother seeking a finding that the father had put a gun to the children and threatened that if they told anyone about the events of 23/24 June 2020 that he would cut the mother’s throat and the children’s throats and feed them to the crocodiles at Key West in Florida.

Once again, I acknowledge that P has given accounts regarding the father’s alleged use of guns during the incident on 23/24 June 2020. However, once again, there are significant difficulties with P’s accounts in circumstances where, as I have noted, the court is reliant on the incomplete, hearsay accounts of the children’s interviews in which P is said to have made this statement, those interviews were conducted when the children had been in the care of their mother for 15 days following the alleged incident and prior to their forensic interview and the interview had occurred as a result of the mother stating she wished to provide further information to the police. In this regard, it is notable that P’s statements during her interview with respect to guns have a filmic quality, with the father alleged by P to be holding a handgun in each hand when pointing them at her. It is also notable that when speaking to Child Services on 26 June 2020, she appears to have made no mention of firearms.

I decline to make a finding that the father attempted to rape P by throwing her on the bed, pulling her legs up and pulling her pants down and attempting to insert his penis in her vagina. Further, I am satisfied that the mother has fabricated that allegation.

For the reasons set out above, I am satisfied that the mother fabricated an allegation of anal rape in respect of Q following the issuing by the father of proceedings under the 1980 Hague Convention. I consider it unlikely that the mother would have made extensive efforts, as I am satisfied she did, to get the father back to the family home on 23/24 June 2020 if she considered that he presented a risk of sexual harm to P or Q (equally, I consider it unlikely that the mother would have sent a picture of the children in the bath to the father on 17 March 2018 if she considered him to be a sexual risk). The mother made no contemporary allegation against the father that he had attempted to rape P.

Further, the contemporaneous sources reveal no allegations by either the mother or P. This is corroborated in the documentary sources. In the incident checklist in support of her application for a civil protection order on 26 June 2020, the mother left blank the box which lists the following types of abuse: “Threat by physical or sexual abuse to children’ and ‘Sexually abusing children in household”. The hospital report from 24 June 2020 records the mother stating the father hit the children but there is no mention of sexual abuse. When giving an account to medics in Colorado on 24 June 2020, in answer to the question “Does he threaten to harm your children?” the mother replied “he hit my son last night and hit my daughter this morning”. In the absence of any contemporaneous allegation no medical examination of the children for physical signs of sexual abuse was undertaken. There is no suggestion that Child Services were concerned about sexual abuse even as they were involved with the family.

Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, no mention was made by the mother of sexual abuse until after the father commenced proceedings under the 1980 Hague Convention seeking the children’s return to the United States, the mother having made no such allegation when attempting to gain asylum in this jurisdiction. In her statement in the 1980 Hague Convention proceedings dated 26 February 2024, the mother introduced for the first time the allegation that she had seen the father attempting to sexually abuse P on more than one occasion, in addition to repeating her allegation that the father had anally raped Q when he was 2 years old. In her statement dated 20 November 2024, the allegation in relation to P had evolved into an allegation that the father sexually assaulted P when she was 3 or 4 years old.

Once again, I acknowledge that P has given an account. However, her accounts of the father pulling her mother’s pants down, of the father’s alleged use of guns during the incident on 23/24 June 2020 and her statements about sexual abuse are not in my judgment reliable. Whilst there is a difference in the evidence of Officer S and Officer M as to what was depicted on the former’s body worn footage, across that footage, P’s statements to Child Services on 26 June 2020 and her Sungate interview, at no point does P state she was sexually assaulted by her father on 23/24 June 2020. In the circumstances, in addition to P’s interview being conducted when she had been in the care of their mother for 15 days following the alleged incident and prior to her forensic interview and the interview had occurred as a result of the mother stating she wished to provide further information to the police, there is in any event no allegation made by P of rape or sexual assault on 23/24 June 2020.

Since being in this jurisdiction P has made a number of statements alleging sexual abuse by the father. In her letter to the Guardian, P alleged that her father had sexually abused both her and Q, including engaging in the sexual abuse of P in the presence of or with another women, with whom the father had been engaging in sexual activity, and forcing her to “smell some white powder”. However, those statements have been made in the context of her being in the care of her mother for an extended period, who raised allegations of sexual abuse only after arriving in this jurisdiction, and lack any specificity. I also bear in mind that P has been diagnosed with learning difficulties and the court has no evidence before it as to what, if any impact, this may have on her recall or vulnerability to adult influence.

In the circumstances, I decline to find on the balance of probabilities that the father attempted to rape P. Further, I am satisfied in the foregoing circumstances that the mother has fabricated that allegation. With respect to P’s statements, I am further satisfied that it is more likely than not that the mother has, either directly or indirectly, influenced P to make those statements regarding sexual abuse by persuading or allowing P to believe she has been sexually abused by her father.

Finally, I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the father physically assaulted Q, pulling his hair and head back. There is no corroborating evidence in respect of that allegation, which falls to be assessed within the context of the court’s concerns regarding the mother’s credibility overall.