Terrorism does not justify child abduction

In Re S (Child) (Abduction: Custody Rights) (CA TLR 15 July)

The mother accepted that her removal of her child from Israel following the breakdown of her marriage was wrongful, but she raised the defence under Article 13(b) of the Hague Convention that there was a grave risk that the minor’s return to Israel would expose the minor to physical and psychological harm and otherwise place the minor in an intolerable situation. On the pleaded facts, the mother’s case was capable in law of amounting to an Article 13(b) defence. The proper approach was for the court to consider the grave risk of harm as a discrete question, but then to stand back and ask whether looking at the matter in the round the risk was established to an extent which would lead one to say that the child would be placed in an intolerable situation if returned. ‘Intolerable’ set the hurdle high, and the court was not persuaded that the scale of violence in Israel and the mother’s reaction to it sufficed to enable it to say that a return would be to an intolerable situation.