Wardship: a new lease of life

Hunt v Hunt [2012] All ER (D) 217 (Oct)

The Family Division considered proceedings issued by the mother under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction alleging wrongful retention of the child or otherwise seeking summary return to Mexico.

The court found that an agreement ostensibly reached between the parties in the Mexican court had not acted as retrospective consent to fix the child's habitual residence in Mexico. This was because the Applicant father had made the child a ward of court in England soon after her abduction and Macur J held that as a result the father was not able to consent on his own to her remaining in Mexico or giving the Mexican courts jurisdiction. Only the court could do so and thus the Convention proceedings were dismissed on the basis of the child's habitual residence in the UK.

This case is a useful example of how the wardship jurisdiction provides additional protection to children. Had the father only issued Children Act proceedings he would have been able to consent on his own to the child remaining in Mexico and the mother's application for a return might have succeeded.