[2025] EWHC 2637 (Fam)

Having heard the evidence, I am satisfied that at some point a building next to the father’s home in the village, which had previously been semi-derelict, was renovated by the father (or at his behest) and converted into a school or Madrasa for girls. AD’s evidence was that he built a school next door to his home in about 2005 and whilst she may not accurately record the date, I accept that she was telling the truth about this. The photographs show a change from the old yellow building to one which is pink and more modern looking. The pink building had a sign outside and a flagpole which suggests that it fulfilled an official function. I reject the father’s evidence to the effect that the building remained unused until he decided that it should be gifted to an unspecified charity. I do not accept that a man who is clearly a shrewd businessman, having run a successful taxi company for decades, would have acted in this way; still less that he would be unable to recall any detail of the arrangement to give away his property. This is one of many lies he has told and I need to consider its significance to the allegation of sexual abuse. It is a lie which is consistent both with a motive to cover up a true allegation but also with seeking to avoid making any admission which might be used against him in the context of his arrest by the police and the risk, as he will have perceived it, of being prosecuted for child sex abuse.

The allegation that the father procured girls from the school for his sexual gratification was first made by the mother on 28 May 2024. On that date she spoke to the first social worker. As recorded by the social worker, she alleged that the father is a ‘paedophile’ who … assaulted young girls from the local school from poorer parts of the community’. The social worker’s evidence is that:

The mother denies having said that she ‘would bring girls’ to the father. In her first statement, she said that she would refuse to act as he instructed and that he would beat her as a consequence. She also said that the father would make his own arrangements by bribing the teachers and guards. Having heard the evidence I am satisfied that the social worker accurately recorded the conversation and I reject the mother’s denial. This does not, however, mean that what the mother said was true and I consider this further below. I do accept the mother’s evidence that her reference to having seen a twelve-year-old girl being assaulted is to the video as opposed to something she personally witnessed.

The mother’s case about the procurement of girls from the Madrasa overlaps with her case about the video. In her first statement, the mother gave little detail about how she came across the video, saying only that she saw it in 2020 after it ‘popped up’ whilst A was watching cartoons on the father’s phone. She also said that the girl belonged to ‘a religious studies group’ (I infer that this is a reference to the Madrasa) and that the father has made ‘many videos of a similar nature whereby he uses footage to blackmail young girls’ (it thus appears that, on the case she was articulating, the father was regularly procuring girls from the Madrassa and making recordings of them similar to that shown in the video). She said that the video was from 2016 (a date which appears in the video itself), before she met the father. The mother also said:

In her schedule of allegations dated 25 October 2024, the mother alleged that in 2018 and 2019 the father physically assaulted her ‘on multiple occasions’ when she refused to bring girls from the local school for him to sexually abuse. In the statement which accompanied this schedule, also dated 25 October 2024, the mother said the following:

If it was true that the mother believed that the father was a paedophile who was sexually abusing, filming and blackmailing multiple young girls, I would consider her actions in allowing A to spend time with him, including overnight at the very premises where a pattern of recidivist and organised sexual abuse was taking place under her nose, to be an extraordinary failure of parenting on her part and one which placed A at serious risk of sexual and emotional harm. The mother is therefore fortunate that I do not believe her evidence about this. I am unable to believe that as a loving mother she would have exposed her daughter to such obvious risks. Although the mother was vulnerable, she was living independently and strongly supported by her family. Her brothers have demonstrated that they were prepared to resort to using extreme physical violence against the father, if necessary to protect their sister from him.

In the background section of this document I have set out my findings about the periods of time the parents spent together. As I set out there, the only period in 2018 and 2019 in which the parties lived together at his home in the village was for approximately six weeks when A was a tiny newborn baby. I consider it wholly implausible that the behaviour described by the mother would have occurred at that particular time and I am unable to accept her evidence. Thereafter, the mother stayed at the property occasionally, but was mainly based in her own home. I find it implausible that the father would have indulged in a habit of sexually abusing young girls over the limited periods when his wife and daughter were staying with him, when he had ample opportunity to do so at other times. I also consider it wholly improbable that the teachers at the school would have been complicit in the father’s nefarious scheme as the mother alleges; if it were true that the father had been able to bribe staff at the school to supply him with girls to abuse (as she also alleges), it is similarly improbable that the mother would have had the ability to intervene and prevent this from happening in the manner she asserts. Had she done so, the father would undoubtedly have found out and she would have faced serious reprisals (if her case were true); yet her evidence is silent about this.

In my judgement, in May 2024 the mother is likely to have felt overwhelmed at the daunting task of recovering her child from a jurisdiction with which she was completely unfamiliar in circumstances where it will have seemed to her that her case against the father will have been her word against his. Her task will have appeared especially daunting as the father was wealthier and more sophisticated than her and her daughter was making allegations of abuse against her. In that context, she had a clear motive to present the father in the worst possible light and, in my judgement, she chose to exaggerate her case by making the allegations she made to the social worker on 28 May 2024. Having done so, she must then have realised that what she said amounted to a highly damaging admission to procuring children for the father to sexually abuse. I consider that she has therefore crafted an elaborate and implausible story involving bribing teachers in order to cover this up.

I do consider it true that there were rumours circulating about the father being a paedophile. AD’s evidence was to this effect. I also consider the father’s denials about the existence of the Madrasa to be highly suspicious. In the final analysis, however, I am unable to find the case which the mother has advanced (and which the local authority has adopted) is proved, however suspicious I may be.

The mother is bound to have been aware at some stage of the rumours which have circulated about the father. The account she has given is likely to be the product of her embellishing those rumours and recasting them as if she had personally witnessed and been involved in the matters she alleges.

Ultimately, I have found that the mother has not been truthful and I do not have reliable evidence on which I can make findings. The existence of rumours (the source of which is unknown to me) and the father’s lies are not sufficient for me to do so.