The mother of a child of two and a half had obtained a custody order with weekly access given to the father. She wished to emigrate with her new husband and the expected child of that marriage to New Zealand. She applied to remove the child permanently from the jurisdiction. If they were not allowed to take the child with them they were prepared to give up their plans to emigrate. The county court judge refused the application.
Held: The appeal succeeded.
Winn LJ said: ‘I am very firmly of opinion that the child`s happiness is directly dependent not only upon the health and happiness of his own mother but upon her freedom from the very likely repercussions of an adverse character, which would result affecting her relations with her new husband and her ability to look after her family peacefully and in a psychological frame of ease, from the refusal of the permission to take this boy to New Zealand which I think quite clearly his welfare dictates.’
Sachs LJ said: ‘When a marriage breaks up, then a situation normally arises when the child of that marriage, instead of being in the joint custody of both parents, must of necessity become one who is in the custody of a single parent. Once that position has arisen and the custody is working well, this court should not lightly interfere with such reasonable way of life as is selected by that parent to whom custody has been rightly given. Any such interference may, as Winn LJ has pointed out, produce considerable strains which would be unfair not only to the parent whose way of life is interfered with but also to any new marriage of that parent. In that way it might well in due course reflect on the welfare of the child. The way in which the parent who properly has custody of a child may choose in a reasonable manner to order his or her way of life is one of those things which the parent who has not been given custody may well have to bear, even though one has every sympathy with the latter on some of the results.’
Judges:
Sachs LJ, Winn LJ
Citations:
[1970] 1 WLR 1469
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Payne v Payne; P v P CA 13-Feb-2001
No presumption for Mother on Relocation
The mother applied for leave to return to New Zealand taking with the parties’ daughter aged four. The father opposed the move, saying that allowing the move would infringe his and the child’s right to family life. He had been refused residence.
Cited – In re AR (A Child: Relocation) FD 10-Jun-2010
Both parents had parental responsibility. The French mother wished to return to live in France and to take the five year old child with her, applying to court for the appropriate order.
Held: The court pointed to the real difficulties always . .
Cited – A v A CA 1979
The mother had been given leave to take the child of the family out of the jurisdiction. The father sought leave to appeal.
Held: Ormrod LJ said: ‘It is always difficult in these cases when marriages break up where a wife who, as this one is, . .
Cited – Chamberlain v de la Mare CA 1983
The mother wanted to take the two infant children to New York with her new husband. The father resisted. At first instance, Balcombe J had considered both Poel and Nash, but said that without wishing to be an iconoclast, he would simply apply the . .
Cited – Lonslow v Hennig CA 1986
The mother sought leave to remove the children of the family against the father’s wishes. She wanted to move to New Zealand. The judge at first instance had refused her application. She appealed.
Held: The appeal succeeded. Though the first . .
Confirmed – In re H (application to remove from jurisdiction) FD 1998
The mother had remarried and now wished to move to the United States with her new husband, an American. The father had played an unusually large role in caring for the child as a baby and continued to keep closely in touch with her. The judge said . .
Cited – In Re C (leave to remove from the jurisdiction) CA 2000
The court heard an appeal from an order made on an application for leave to remove a child from the jurisdiction. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Children
Updated: 17 May 2022; Ref: scu.260328