FD24P00235 - [2025] EWHC 952 (Fam)

Fecha: 29-Abr-2025

BACKGROUND

The background to this matter is set out in the judgment of Ms Khalique KC in A Father v A Mother [2024] EWHC 991 (Fam). That judgment should be read with this judgment. Ms Khalique KC refused the application under the 1980 Hague Convention on the basis that the father had not established that the removal of the children was in breach of his rights of custody. The court also found that the mother had made out the exception of the children’s objections. Whilst the court was satisfied that there was a grave risk of psychological harm to both P and Q on return to the USA when the mother’s allegations were taken at their highest, the court further concluded that it would have been possible to put protective measures in place to prevent the grave risk of harm, assuming the court had concluded that the removal was in breach of the father’s rights of custody.

As Ms Khalique KC noted when giving judgment on the father’s application for a return order under Art 12 of the 1980 Hague Convention, this case is characterised by the chasm that exists between the facts as contended for by the mother and those contended for by the father. The parties disagree as to almost every factual issue.

On the mother’s case the father is a high level, violent member of MS13 (Footnote: ¹) who has trafficked and dealt drugs internationally, trafficked the mother across national borders, fed a corpse to alligators in the Florida Keys in the presence of the mother and the children as a means of intimidating them, sexually abused the mother and the children and who is able to engage a worldwide network of criminal associates to track and threaten the mother with impunity wherever she is, including in this jurisdiction. On the father’s case, having met online following his conversion to Islam and thereafter having undergone an Islamic marriage in London and a civil marriage in Bolivia, the parties led a largely uneventful family life over the course of a decade, first in Florida and then in Colorado before the mother’s behaviour grew more extreme, at which point the father took steps towards separation and divorce prior to the mother wrongfully removing the children to jurisdiction of England and Wales. The mother thereafter applied for asylum in this country. The Secretary of State for the Home Department denied this application, although the mother and children were granted leave to remain in the UK until 14 March 2026.

The mother now seeks the following findings on the balance of probabilities set out in a Schedule that is before the court:

Whilst the parties were in Bolivia, the father engaged in coercive and controlling behaviour towards the mother, for example by locking the mother in the family home, not permitting the mother to work or attend education, keeping the mother isolated and taking her passport.

ii)

Whilst the parties were in Bolivia, the father physically, emotionally and psychologically abused the mother, for example by assaulting the mother and on one occasion causing a miscarriage and preventing her seeking medical treatment and by making threats of physical abuse.

iii)

Whilst the parties were in Bolivia, the father did not give the mother any money and was not provided by him with an opportunity to work, meaning she had no financial independence.

iv)

Whilst the mother was pregnant with P and Q, the father would not permit her to access antenatal care until she was a number of months pregnant.

The father assaulted the mother whilst she was pregnant with P, causing a bump to her head, which was treated at a Regional Medical Centre in Florida (I note that in 2020 the Regional Medical Centre informed the Colorado DA that it had not been able to locate a record for the mother, although the mother’s name is spelt incorrectly in the relevant correspondence).

vi)

The mother was only able to leave the family home when the father was not present and had no identity card of her own (the Offence-Incident report from 26 April 2017 records that the mother in fact had a US driving licence).

vii)

The mother had no opportunity to work or to be financially independent of the father.

viii)

The father would regularly push and slap the mother and severely beat the mother on occasion.

ix)

On the evening of 25 April 2017 the father threatened the mother with physical assault with a belt if she refused to take part in a sexual act with another woman invited to the family home for a party.

On the morning of 26 April 2017 the father attacked the mother, slapping her several times to the face and calling her names. The father then choked the mother, causing her to pass out and to have a swollen and bruised jaw.

xi)

Following her fleeing Florida with the children for Colorado, the mother encountered ongoing threats and stalking behaviour from associates of the father through his links to MS13.

xii)

The mother was informed that the father knew the whereabouts of her and the children.

xiii)

The father sent messages to the mother and she received calls from “blocked” phone numbers.

xiv)

On 23/24 June 2020, the father held the mother and the children hostage at their home in Colorado having forced entry.

xv)

The father verbally abused the mother and called her names including ‘stupid’ and ‘dumb’.

xvi)

The father physically assaulted Q, pulling his hair and head back.

xvii)

The father banged the mother’s head down on the kitchen counter, causing her physical injury.

xviii)

The father attempted to sexually assault the mother by penetrating her from behind with his penis causing bleeding, rupture and pain.

xix)

The father threatened to shoot the children and the mother with a gun he had with him. The father 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.

xx)

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.

xxi)

The father threw the mother into a dressing room table causing her to pass out.

xxii)

Once she arrived in United Kingdom there have been a number of occasions when the mother encountered ongoing threats and stalking behaviour from associates of the father’s “through his link with the ‘MS13’ gang”.

The father denies each of the findings sought by the mother. He seeks findings that:

The allegations made by the mother have been fabricated or embellished by her.

ii)

That the mother has engaged in alienating behaviours in an effort to estrange the children from him, in the form of (a) making false allegations, (b) unlawfully removing the children from the jurisdiction of the United States and (c) obstructing the children’s relationship with the father between 2020 and now.

10.

In addition to the findings sought by the parties set out above, the disparity between the parties’ versions of events has required the court to consider and determine issues as diverse as the mother’s date of birth and nationality and the extent to which the father has historically been involved in domestic violence proceedings with his own mother.