This judgment was delivered in private. The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published.[2026] EWHC 1474 (Fam)Case No FD2600242
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Venue Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LLDate 3 June 2026
Before
Mr Justin Warshaw KCsitting as Deputy High Court Judge
Between
ABApplicantCDRespondentJason Green (instructed by Hunters Law LLP) for applicantHearing Hearing dates: 29 May 20026Approved Judgment.............................MR JUSTIN WARSHAW KC
Mr Justin Warshaw KC:
[1]International child abduction by the child’s own parent has been described as a ‘scourge’, a ‘heinous practice’ and a ‘dreadful phenomenon’ which is ‘an offence of unspeakable cruelty to the [other non-abducting] loving parent and the child’ (see paragraph 59 of RJ v Tigipko and others [2019] EWHC 448 (Fam), quoting R v Kayani [2011] EWCA Crim 2871).[2]When a child is abducted by one parent from a foreign jurisdiction into this jurisdiction and when that foreign jurisdiction is a signatory to the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction signed at the Hague, usually referred to as the 1980 Hague Convention, an application may be brought in this jurisdiction against the abducting parent for the return of the child under the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985. Court hearings within those proceedings are held in private and, if the court decides to publish judgments, those judgments are anonymised. The confidentiality of the proceedings, including the identities of the parties and the children, is governed by section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act and section 97 of the Children Act 1989.[3]The abducting parent may raise a defense or defenses to an application for a summary return. For the court in this jurisdiction to determine whether or not to exercise its powers to order the summary return of the child it is necessary first to locate the abducting parent and child. The High Court of England and Wales has an array of powers and resources at its disposal to locate such parents and children. Sometimes those powers are not enough.[4]When such parents and children cannot be located, the court can be invited to lift the restriction on confidentiality to allow parents seeking summary return of the child to publicise the facts of their case and to divulge information to the press and other third parties in the hope that such publicity will lead to the location of the children. This is such a case.[5]This is an application about two children, B, who is 5 years old and his brother, N, who is 3 years old. The application is brought to court by the children’s father, AB[“F”], against their mother, CD[“M”].[6]The application was listed in the urgent applications list during vacation for three hours. F was represented at the hearing by Mr Jason Green instructed by Ms Amy Rowe of Hunters Law LLP. M did not attend the hearing for reasons which will become clear in due course. Due to the number of applications in the list, there was insufficient time to give an extempore judgment and so I reserved it.
Background
[7]F is 43 years old. He is a US citizen. M is 33 years old. She is a British citizen, originally from Sri Lanka. The parties began their relationship in around December 2019 and married in July 2020. At the start of the relationship, F was living in Colorado and M was living in London. A few months before the marriage, M moved to Colorado to make a life with F. The children were born in the USA and both have US and British citizenship.[8]The relationship broke down in October 2024. On 24 October 2024, M issued a petition for divorce in her local Colorado District Court and filed a motion for civil protection orders, citing domestic abuse. At or at about the same time F filed a petition for legal separation and a motion for abduction prevention measures. On 25 October 2024, temporary protections orders were granted on M’s motion. This was extended on 15 November 2024 and on 6 December 2024 the court granted a permanent protection order.[9]On 9 December 2024, M made an application to prevent F from having contact with the children. She made serious allegations about F’s behaviour. At a hearing on 16 December 2024, the court limited F’s contact to one hour per week of supervised contact. This order was re-iterated on 29 January 2025.[10]On 26 August 2025, M filed a motion to relocate to London with the children. On 11 September 2025, the court instituted a phased increase of contact between F and the children and refused M’s application to relocate temporarily to England.[11]On 14 September 2025, M travelled to London, leaving the children in the care of her mother. On 18 September 2025, she filed an advisory note with the court in Colorado explaining that she had relocated to London and left the children in the care of her mother. On 23 September 2025, F applied to court for orders consequent on M’s removal to London. On 30 September 2025 and 2 October 2025, there was a fact-finding hearing at which the court found that F’s contact with the children should not be restricted on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations which, the court noted, had been investigated by multiple agencies.[12]On 9 October 2025, M filed a further request to relocate the children to London. On 13 October 2025, M filed a status report with the court in which she explained that her mother would be required to leave the USA by 22 October 2025. On 15 October 2025, she filed a further motion to relocate the children.[13]On 17 October 2025, the court in Colorado made an order making F the primary custodial parent and ordering that the children remain in Colorado. M filed a further request to remove the children.[14]On 22 October 2025, M’s mother left the USA and F assumed primary care of the children. On 20 November 2025, M asserted that she could not travel to the USA to have contact with the children as she had overstayed her visa waiver.[15]On 18 December 2025, the court in Colorado ordered that F should take the children to England to spend time with M for two periods, first, between 20 December 2025 and 2 January 2026 and, second, between 21 March 2026 and 29 March 2026. Pursuant to that order, F brough the children to England for the first period of contact, which took place as ordered by the Colorado court.[16]On 18 March 2026, M made an application in England for a non-molestation order against F. That application was listed before the East London Family Court on 2 April 2026. In accordance with the Colorado court order, F brought the children to England on 21 March 2026. M collected the children from F as arranged. F retained the children’s US and British passports. On 29 March 2026, when he attended the airport to take the children back to the USA, F was served with M’s application for a non-molestation order by a process server. M did not return the children to F’s care as required by the Colorado court order.[17]On the same day, M made an emergency application in the Colorado court to restrict F’s contact with the children on the basis of serious allegations about his behaviour. F cross applied for orders preventing M from abducting the children.[18]On 2 April 2026, M’s application for a non-molestation order was listed before a judge at the East London Family Court. M did not attend the hearing and the application was dismissed. Later that day, F applied in this jurisdiction to McKenrick J, sitting as the out of hours judge. That judge made an order preventing the children from leaving the jurisdiction and directed a port alert be put in place.[19]On 3 April 2026, the matter came before the District Court in Colorado. The court declared that the children were habitually resident in the USA, that Colorado was their home state, that F remained their primary carer and that M must immediately return the children to F’s care. On 8 April 2026 District Judge Earl of the Colorado District Court found that “there [was] a credible risk that the children are in imminent danger” and authorised officers to take physical custody of them.[20]On 9 April 2026, F issued proceedings in this jurisdiction for the summary return of the children to the USA under the Child Abduction and Custody Act. That application came before Harrison J on 10 April 2026 on a without notice basis. He made orders for four government departments to give disclosure of M’s and the children’s whereabout to the Tipstaff, the High Court’s enforcement officer. On 14 April 2026, an address in London NW8 was disclosed by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. That agency held no other relevant information. When officers attended the address, they interviewed the occupant and searched the premises. They discovered that this was a property at which M had resided four years ago. The occupant provided a mobile telephone number.[21]On 15 April 2026, the National Health Service provided an address in London E14. Officers attended on 16 April 2026 and were told by the concierge that the address in which M had been residing had not been accessed since 3 April 2026.[22]The Department of Education hold no information about M or the children. His Majesty’s Passport Office have not issued any new passports for the children and will not now do so. As I have already said, F holds the children’s passports. The children may be entitled to Sri Lankan passports and a request has been made to the relevant authority asking that no Sri Lankan passports be issued for them.[23]The matter came back before Harrison J on 21 April 2026. He made orders for disclosure against(a) EE, 3G and Vodaphone for ongoing information about M’s phone usage,(b) a company thought to be M’s employer in the UK and(c) HSBC, M’s bankers. The orders against the phone companies revealed that M was at Canary Wharf until 30 March 2026, then in the Edgware Road area and then York and Newcastle. There is no information which post dates 13 April 2026. The company which was thought to employ her explained that she was engaged as an independent contractor and the information they held about her was very limited.[24]The matter was once again back before Harrison J on 1 May 2026. He made further disclosure orders against Wise Bank, HSBC, 3G, the Arts Club on Dover Street W1, which it was suggested that M was known to visit, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and a GP practice in London E14. F also issued a witness summons against one of M’s old housemates. The question of relaxing the restriction on confidentiality was raised at his hearing. I have been told that Harrison J suggested that the question should await the outcome of the further orders he was making.[25]These further disclosure orders led nowhere. The Arts Club divulged that M had not been at the club since 18 March 2026. The orders against the mobile phone companies have not led to further information. The GP’s practice advised that they had no details. Tower Hamlets had no new information, but they did hold some information about M’s mother’s details. The rolling orders for disclosure against HSBC and M’s other account revealed one payment of £15,000 to a firm of London solicitors on 18 May 2026 and another of £5,000 on the same date from her Wise account.[26]On 18 May 2026, the case came before Mr S Karim KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge. M’s old housemate attended for cross examination. He explained that he had not seen M since early March and his last communication with her was on 4 April 2024. The deputy judge made orders for disclosure against:a. JP Morgan Chase Bank;b. HSBC (again);c. 3G (again);d. Thames Water;e. Communal Energy;f. The NHS re M’s mother;g. An investigations agency which received a payment from M; andh. The firm of solicitors to which £15,000 was paid.[27]On 22 May 2026, the firm of solicitors applied for a stay of the order made against them. On the same day, Peel J discharged that order on the basis that firm confirmed the address and telephone number they held, which was the same as already provided to F’s solicitors from other sources.[28]The other orders made by Mr Karim KC have not proved fruitful. At the hearing before me on 29 May 2026 I made further disclosure and other orders to assist in locating M.[29]In addition, I released F’s solicitors from the undertakings they had given to the court not to share with F the information that they had received from the disclosure orders. I did this to enable F to use that information to conduct further inquiries. In so doing I bore in mind that the court has a broad jurisdiction to take steps to locate children (see In Re HM (vulnerable adult: abduction) [2010] EWHC 870 (Fam)).[30]I have grave reservations about the efficacy of the new orders that I have made. I doubt that they will lead to discovery of the whereabouts of M and the children.
Publicity order
[31]I turn now to the publicity order sought by F. He applies for an order allowing him to disclose to third parties, in particular the media, in this jurisdiction or elsewhere in the world such information (including images of the mother and children) as he deems appropriate to assist in the location of the children. The order sought is drafted in the standard terms for a publicity order.[32]As I have said, the court has a broad jurisdiction to take steps to locate children but what is it to do when those steps lead nowhere?[33]Mr Green brought to my attention two authorities in which publicity orders were made. The first was Bejaoui v Smolik [2024] EWHC 920 (Fam), a decision of Francis J. The second was Uhd v McKay [2019] EWHC 1239 (Fam), a decision of MacDonald J which refers at paragraph 3 to a publicity order made by Keehan J at an earlier stage in the proceedings. Neither authority gives any legal test to be applied on such an application.[34]Mr Green pointed out to me that Practice Direction 12F of the FPR 2010 provides at paragraph 4.15: When a child has been abducted and a judge considers that publicity may help in tracing the child, the judge may adjourn the case for a short period to enable representatives of the Press to attend to give the case the widest possible publicity.[35]The drafters of this paragraph clearly envisaged the sort of orders made in Bejaoui and Uhd.[36]I am dealing with an application made F on a without notice basis. M is not in a position to make any submissions. The children are not represented. I only have one side of the case before me but I remind myself that, in any given case where a judge considers publicity is likely to help tracing a child, there is likely only to be argument from one side.[37]It seems to me that I must weigh up the benefits of publicity against the potential harm that might be caused by such publicity.[38]The relevant background is that:a. The children have been missing for two months;b. There have been five court hearings at which the full panoply of potential orders have been made to no avail; andc. The Colorado District Court has found that “there is a credible risk that the children are in imminent danger.”[39]It seems to me that in these circumstances the chances of locating the children are much increased if F is allowed to publicise this case and engage the press. If the press cover this story, the children are likely to be located, or at the very least the chance of locating them will be increased. Locating them and resolving the issues between their parents is clearly in their best interests.[40]The potential harm to the children of not being located seems to me likely, on balance, to be greater than any harm of publicity. While it is not normal to relax the rules of anonymity provided by section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act and section 97 of the Children Act 1989, in my view it is proportionate to do so in this case.[41]I considered adjourning this matter and inviting the press to attend an adjourned hearing but I am concerned that further delay is not in the children’s best interests. Also, in the current climate in which media resources are stretched, there would be a possibility that the press might not attend even if invited.[42]I therefore deliver this judgment on the basis that it or any part of it may be divulged to third parties in accordance with the publicity order that I am making.[43]I intend to publish this judgment on the National Archive in an anonymised form so that in the future it will not immediately be connected with these children. Regardless of the anonymisation in this version, under the terms of the order I have made there is no prohibition on identifying the children or the parties.[44]That is my judgment.