[2025] EWHC 2961 (Fam)

The father has, in support of this limb of his case, sought to rely heavily on his digest of concerns. These are described as “escalating” concerns, which are said to have a culminative impact. The two incidents on 18/6/25 and 19/6/25 are set out fully above. These incidents, and the incident back in 2022, form only part of the father’s present case as to the overall picture [68-/510-510]. I have to take these at their highest, albeit with the appropriate degree of analysis and appraisal commensurate with the particular nature of this hearing.

By way of appraisal, I have already confirmed that the incident on 18/6/25 was very concerning. There is a body of evidence, including the audio evidence, in support of the father’s case. Indeed, the mother accepts her actions in relation to the knife on 18/6/25. However, I have sought to explore the relevant context for this incident.

In relation to the father’s allegations about events on 19/6/25, there is once again a body of evidence. The father has also produced some prima facie evidence in support of his assertion that the mother was planning an incident that day that would ultimately involve police and the making of allegations against him. However, in my judgment, that evidence is also capable of other interpretation as set out earlier.

There is also the audio evidence relating to the earlier incident in 2022, which I have extensively reviewed earlier.

In relation to father’s specific concerns about the mother’s threats to self harm, the events of 18/6/25 provide some direct support from the mother’s accepted conduct in relation to the knife in relation to his assertion that she has made similar threats previously.

However, by way of overall review and appraisal, in my judgment the father’s lengthy digest of concerns must also be seen against the wider canvas.

Firstly, the father did not seek any professional advice about his concerns regarding mother. He repeatedly, on his own case, left the child in mother’s sole care in Japan. She was away from him and any real monitoring by him ‘on the ground’ for prolonged periods.

There is also no evidence before me that the father took any steps to alert anyone in Japan about his concerns regarding the mother.

I note that the mother has been receiving psychological input in Japan [221/510]. The reasons for her doing so are, on her case, related to father’s behaviour. This is in issue. For the avoidance again of any doubt, I confirm that this source of evidence was not the result of an independent Part 25 application for an expert’s report and there was no attempt in the hearing to treat it as such. However, the fact that she has sought external help in any event is positive.

It seems to me that I must have some regard to the fact that the mother continues to discharge her professional duties at her place of employment in Japan.

In relation to the father’s allegations that the mother repeatedly manipulated and controlled him, with threats to frustrate his role in the child’s life, once again it would appear he sought no professional advice about this until he approached his current solicitors in June 2025. I also note that this alleged behaviour has not historically had an apparent impact on his actual ability to parent the child.

I must also have regard to the broadly consensual picture that arrangements for the parents’ parenting the child were, in fact, going very well until a few months before the Spring of 2025. Father spent a lot of time with the child on any view. Indeed, events in the first quarter of 2025 did not stop the child from being brought to England in April 2025.

Furthermore, as recently as the letter dated 17/6/25 from the father’s solicitors, the solicitors were proposing, on his instructions, ‘50/50’ co-parenting between them. He seemingly cannot have had any real and meaningful concerns about the child’s fundamental safety and welfare in her mother’s care, or the impact of her alleged past behaviour on him. That therefore brings into sharp focus the events of 18/6/25 and 19/6/25 in relation to which the court has set out the context.

I also note that the father agreed to unsupervised contact between the child and mother on 21/7/25 and that all subsequent direct contact has been unsupervised, with no concerns arising. Whilst such periods of contact have been for relatively short time limited periods, these arrangements are nevertheless significant.

Finally, and set against all of the above, I also note that I am concerned with a delightful and well-adjusted little girl, who has progressed consistently well in her life to date with both individual and combined parenting, which on any view has been to a very large extent in mother’s care

I therefore now turn to consider the father’s contention that a return of the child to Japan would deliver to the mother a fait accompli in terms of effectively determining, adversely from his perspective, the future decision for the child’s fundamental future. On a worst-case scenario, he says he fears the end of his involvement in her life. I digress to note that he has been previously concerned that he would lose any case in Japanese [420/510] and, it seems to me, is vulnerable to the point that he has been seeking to obtain a tactical advantage in terms of his litigation conduct.

On the strength of the report, and the answers to some of the above questions, Mr Gupta KC urged me to form a negative view as to the prospects of the father gaining in Japan care (sole or joint) of the child long term or a relocation order. It seems to me that there may indeed be some basis to that submission.

On the other hand, I must bear in mind the counter submissions by Mr Gration KC. I agree that there is indeed a degree of resonance in terms of the Court’s approach to child matters in Japan to that deployed by the High Court and the Family Court in England and Wales. I agree that caution, as in most things in life, should be deployed in relation to statistics.

More fundamentally, I must consider the submission advanced to me that this Court should hesitate long and hard before acceding to a case that seeks to be critical of the Japanese Family Justice system and that, as a signatory to the Convention, the justice system in that country must be ‘trusted’. I discerned a degree of reluctant acknowledgement by Mr Gupta KC in that regard. In my judgment, that must be right. I should, and I do, endorse this important submission by Mr Gration KC.

Drawing together the strands of this section of my judgment, I have reached the conclusion that the father has not met the threshold for this Court to consider exercising its discretion not to return the child to Japan and that accordingly, the father has failed to discharge the burden on him under this limb of the case.

It follows that my ultimate summary determination is that the child should be returned to Japan.