A mother who abducted her daughter has been ordered to return the child to her home country in accordance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980.

The case involved a Bulgarian couple who had lived in the UK. Their daughter was born in the UK and, following the breakdown of the parents’ marriage, the family went back to Bulgaria in December 2019.

The father remained there, and he removed his consent to the child returning to the UK. His revocation was filed with the Bulgarian border police.

The mother commenced wardship proceedings in the UK, which were stayed pending her application in Bulgaria for the summary return of the child from Bulgaria to the UK.

That application was dismissed on the basis that the child was not wrongfully retained in Bulgaria.

The English court decided that child arrangements decisions should be decided by the Bulgarian courts. The child remained living in Bulgaria until June 2022 when the mother avoided the travel ban by arriving in the UK via Romania.

The father applied to the Family Court in England for the child’s summary return to Bulgaria under the Hague Convention.

The mother submitted that: the father was not exercising his rights of custody at the time of the child’s removal from Bulgaria; she was acting lawfully under Bulgarian law when she took the child out of the country; the child was habitually resident in the UK and never acquired habitual residence in Bulgaria; and, under art.13(b) of the Hague Convention, a return to Bulgaria would place her and the child in an intolerable situation or breach their human rights.

The court granted the father’s application.

It held that the mother was not entitled to take advantage of her own actions in preventing the father from seeing the child as a basis for suggesting his lack of engagement.

The court accepted expert evidence that removing the child from Bulgaria without the father’s consent was a breach of his rights under Bulgarian law. Assuming that the child was habitually resident in Bulgaria, her removal was wrongful under the Convention.

The child was physically present in Bulgaria from December 2019 until June 2022 and had been cared for by the mother and her family. Habitual residence was a matter of fact not law and had to be assessed from the child’s perspective.

The child had lived more than half her life in Bulgaria and was part of an extended family there. She had become habitually resident in Bulgaria.

A return order was granted to allow the Bulgarian court to consider child arrangements.

Case citation: AB v CD Family Division [2022] EWFC 145 Judge David Lock QC

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