FD24P00616 - [2025] EWHC 985 (Fam)

The Mother’s first witness statement explained that she had met the Father in a city in Southern Spain in 2015 when she had moved to Spain from England to work as a language assistant on a graduate programme. She says that she was never planning on staying there and wanted to move to Madrid as she had secured a job as an au pair there. However, the relationship developed and she never went to Madrid but instead stayed working in that area. The couple moved in together in January 2016 but they never married. They first moved to a rented flat and then a few months later they moved to a house that the Father then bought.

In September 2016, she says that she found out that she was pregnant and that their daughter, EF, was born on 19 April 2017. She said that, after she became pregnant, the Father’s temperament changed and he became short-tempered and would fly off the handle for no apparent reason.

The Mother’s case is that the Father had a longstanding cocaine habit and would use cannabis on a daily basis. At that time, the Father was working long hours in a bar owned by his father. The Mother said the bar had a bad reputation for drugs and fighting. She says she believed that he was taking drugs in order to stay awake and get through his shifts. When he would come home, she says he would find it difficult to sleep so he would smoke cannabis to relax. She also alleged that the Father was growing cannabis and selling it commercially.

She says that she experienced domestic violence from the Father and that she “became compliant and scared of him”. The Mother’s evidence is that the Father continued to behave in this way after EF was born. She said:

“I never wanted to argue in front of EF but sometimes it was inevitable when AB would come back in a bad mood and start screaming and shouting at me for no reason. Sometimes when he was drunk, he would purposely wake up EF in the night so that I could not get any sleep by being loud, singing, laughing and trying to get her to be awake so that I had to see to her and so that I couldn’t sleep. He would always accuse me of being unfaithful and I used to tell him that I would never cheat on him and that he was being paranoid. He would have none of it and would insist on going through my phone. AB was adamant that I must be having sex with other people at the beach club. Even calling numerous colleagues to confront them, to which they obviously denied and even told him he was ‘crazy’”

The Mother describes a cycle of verbal abuse followed by remorse by the Father, and then a period of quiet followed by another drug-fuelled period of abuse and threats of violence against the Mother. One of the agreed areas of contention between the Mother and the Father concerned sexual intercourse. The Mother complains in her statement that, in summary, the Father had a far higher expectation of sexual intercourse than she wanted and that, whenever she did not want to have sex with him, the Father got angry and abused her. I note that the Father’s view was that the Mother had a problem with sex which she needed to solve and he suggested that this was a medical or psychological problem she needed to address. It appears common ground that differences in sexual expectations were a source of considerable tension between the Mother and the Father throughout the period of their relationship.

The Mother’s case is that following GH being born, the threats and aggression from the Father got even worse. She said:

“If I refused to have sex with him, he threatened that he would take me to the mountains and beat me to death. He told me that he would leave me there and that no one would care and/or be suspicious because I had no friends or family in Spain. He would say things such as he was going to kill me and then use the time in prison to get an education, get the children when he got out of prison and be happy. I remember on one occasion be smashed my mobile phone so that I could not call anyone”

The Mother has exhibited a number of text messages she sent to her mother complaining about the Father’s conduct and setting out her concerns that he was taking cocaine. Those messages also suggested that the Father said at times that he did not want to have the children and refers to threats made by the Father.

These difficulties led to the Mother moving out of the Father’s house with the children at about the time of New Years Eve at the end of 2019. However it appears the relationship was on and off and she explained that, in March 2020, she moved back in with the Father as Spain went into lockdown due to the Covid pandemic. She says the Father persuaded her to come back to live with him and promised he was “going to get clean and was going to stop with the cocaine and the cannabis”. She also says she was concerned she would not be able to survive lockdown alone, with no friends or family to help. She said things were OK for a few months but then the Father’s drinking and drug taking started again. Her case is that she moved back and forth on a series of occasions, hoping each time that the Father’s behaviour would match his promises but finding that this was not the case.

It appears that, although the couple had largely separated by late 2020, in December 2020 they travelled to England to visit the Mother’s family for a 2 week holiday. On the way back the Father got drunk on the plane. The Mother says he was abusive to her and others and was arrested when he arrived back in Spain. Whilst the exact circumstances of this incident are in dispute, the documentation suggests that the Father was convicted of assaulting one or more security guards and was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment.

Although relations between the couple were strained, between 2021 and 2024 the Mother continued to live in Spain with the children separately from the Father but the children spent a considerable amount of time in the house occupied by the Father, his Mother and various members of his family. Nothing was ever formally agreed but a pattern of regular contact arrangements developed between them. In general, the children appear to have spent one week with the Mother and then spend some alternate weeks at the Father’s house. The Mother states that she did not have any particular concerns about the Father or members of his family posing a risk to the children and took reassurance from the fact that the Father was living with his Mother who was providing part of the care for the children in the weeks when they were with the Father. She said:

“I was really worried that AB would go to the Court and have the children taken from me. Which was something that he threatened often. I did speak to a lawyer over there who said that it was highly likely that if one of us went to Court, AB would get one week off and one week on with the children. I therefore felt that I had no option but to agree for him to have them six days in a row with me having them eight days in a row. He has friends and family members who are lawyers, I did not know any lawyers nor would I have been able to afford one”

The Mother’s case is that the Father oscillated between wanting to be a good and involved Father to the children and wanting to pursue a new life as a single man without having the responsibilities of looking after the children. She says that he often spoke of the possibility of the Mother moving to live with the children in England and, at times, encouraged her to do so. She describes him being at best ambivalent about having the role as a parent and feeling that, if they moved to England, he would get his freedom back as a single man. She says that he suggested this between 20 and 30 times prior to August 2024.

She explained that things came to a head when the Father sent her a voice message cancelling a birthday party for GH which had been due to be held at his house on 12 August 2024. It was a long message full of expletives and the following gives a sense of the tone:

“You have 10 more days and I’m sorry, I don’t want this fucking birthday in my house. I don’t want these people in my house. I don’t want nobody that they don’t want, the same that you do it because you can just change the plan, make it in your house if you wanna”

The overall message was clear, namely that the Father was upset and part of his response was that he was not prepared to have the child’s party in his house. The Mother said she responded to this message by going to his house on Sunday 4th August to discuss things. She said:

“… the house was a complete mess. I was shocked. I had never seen the house in such a squalid condition. I found AB sat at the kitchen table crying. He admitted to me that he had been taking cocaine whilst caring for the children and that he cannot stand this situation anymore. He says that he did not want to be cruel, but it would be best for everyone if we moved to England where I have family support and can find a job and also get some support from the government, something that is not possible for me to get in Spain. ….

I comforted AB by telling him that I will make sure he still has a relationship with the children when we moved to England and that this will allow him to find his own happiness. We both mentioned that this distance and time apart will benefit us both as I had also been struggling with memories of the past and what AB had done to me during the time we were together which included emotional and physical abuse”

She also says that, as part of this discussion, he changed his mind about the party and agreed to have it at his house on 12 August.

The Mother was in the habit of coming to England with the children to visit her mother and step-father about 3 times a year, although she made fewer trips during the covid pandemic. She was due to leave for England on 14 August and her case is that this pre-planned trip was then agreed between them for her to move to England with the children. In the days before 14 August she says that she arranged to give up the tenancy of her flat and gave her car to a friend to sell. She says that some of the children’s things were taken to the Father’s house so that the children would have a welcoming environment when they visited.

The party went ahead on 12 August and the Mother explained how some people knew she was leaving but others did not and she was cautious about who she told because, in summary, the Father wanted to control how the information got out. That is, so she explained, why she wrongly told a friend of the Father’s called Joanna that she would be back in 2 weeks when she knew that, in fact, she would be staying in England for far longer.

The Mother bought one-way flights to England and travelled with the children to East Midlands on 12 August. She thus says that she moved to England with the Father’s consent.