FD24P00616 - [2025] EWHC 985 (Fam)

Given the findings I have made, I exercise my discretion not to order a return. The fact that I have found consent suggests that the principles of the Convention in favour of return, as urged on me by Ms Georges, have limited weight for the reasons explained by Lord Justice Jackson in Re PJ. The children are now settled in the UK and doing well at school here whereas there are enormous uncertainties for the children if they were return to Spain. I accept that this is the working out of a plan that the Father and Mother made on about 4 August 2024. I conclude that the Father changed his mind either as a result of the disclosures made by the children or for other factors, but I accept that EF is terrified of a return to Spain and, given all the facts of this case, it does not seem appropriate to me to subject the children to all of the uncertainties which would inevitably arise following a return to Spain now that they are now settled in the UK.

Whatever the truth of the allegations made by the Father against the Mother, I express the hope that a route will be found for the children to re-establish a functional relationship with their father. I have found that the Father oscillates between times when he has a deep love and commitment to the children and times when he is a high level of anger and antagonism towards the Mother and, to some extent, against the children. Having heard him give evidence, I am sure that there is a very large part of him that wants to be part of the lives of the children and that the dominant part of him is devoted to the children and, notwithstanding that he agreed they should go to live in England, he has the potential to play an important part in their lives. It will now be for the Mother and the Father to work out between them whether they can find a child-focused way to gradually show the Father’s best side to the children and rebuild the children’s trust in him as a caring parent. That may be a long, slow process and I express the hope that it could be done by agreement between the Mother and the Father as opposed to being the subject of further litigation. However, if there is to be further litigation about the arrangements for these children, it will have to take place in the UK as opposed to in Spain.

I therefore dismiss this application.