EUPillar B-G v B-G [2008] EWHC 688 (Fam)

Summary

The child abduction proceedings were initiated in England by the father on 21st August 2007. The father sought the immediate return of the children to France. The parties had married on 21st June 2003. They moved to France in the summer of 2004. It was accepted that the children were wrongfully removed from France on the 10th October 2006 (i.e. about 10 months before the father’s application). On this basis, the mother alleged that the father had acquiesced in the removal which was the central question in this case. The English court dismissed the father’s application. Mr Justice Coleridge held that: “20 Taking the oral evidence of the parties with those documents, altogether I have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion, as indicated in my preliminary judgment that the Father had acquiesced in the children's removal from France and their remaining in this country by the time he issued his proceedings under the Hague Convention . 21 I take into account and accept the fact that he did not have correct advice about or a detailed knowledge of his rights under the Hague Convention . But those are not a prerequisite for the establishing of defence of acquiescence. What is important is that he knew he could bring proceedings for their return to France but he chose instead, by April 2007, to accept the situation of the children having returned to their home country. From then on it seems to me he acted in accordance with that decision and the Mother cannot but have believed that he had accepted the situation which by then had arisen.” [20-21].