The High Court has refused a father’s application for the return of his 11‑year‑old son to Zimbabwe, holding that his court‑ordered contact amounted to access rather than rights of custody and so the removal was not “wrongful” for Hague Convention purposes.
F v L & Ors EWHC 2190 (Fam) concerned T, born in 2014. The parents met in 2013 in Zimbabwe, separated in 2017, and a Zimbabwean magistrates’ court awarded the mother custody with defined contact to the father in January 2022. In August 2022 the mother re‑registered T’s details, and in October 2022 removed him to England to live with her sister and brother‑in‑law without notifying the father. The father learned of the move only in 2024 after receiving a voice note in which T spoke with an English accent, traced the maternal family address in November 2024, travelled to the UK in February 2025, saw T, and then issued a Hague return application in April 2025. Directions hearings followed in May and June; the substantive hearing was on 10–11 July 2025 and judgment was handed down on 20 August 2025.
Sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, Vikram Sachdeva KC found under Zimbabwean common law a custodial parent may relocate abroad unless a court order expressly restricts removal; an access‑only parent has no veto or right to consultation. The judge cited Makuni v Makuni and distinguished Kumalo v Kumalo and Peacock v Steyn, concluding that the father’s rights did not include a power to prevent T leaving Zimbabwe.
Applying the Convention’s autonomous concepts, the court held that the father’s rights were not “rights of custody” within Articles 3 and 5; following Hunter v Murrow [2005] EWCA Civ 976 and Re D (Abduction: Rights of Custody) [2006] UKHL 51, the absence of a removal veto was decisive. ‘I do not construe the father’s rights as extending to a power of veto…” and “the rights enjoyed by the father do not constitute ‘rights of custody’,’ the judge said. Accordingly, the application failed at the threshold.
Addressing the mother’s defences on settlement, despite significant concealment—including identity changes and years without paternal contact—the judge found T well‑settled physically and psychologically in England, integrated at school and in the community, taking a holistic approach consistent with Re N (1991) and Cannon v Cannon [2004] EWCA Civ 1330, and echoing guidance recently distilled in Re G & B (Ukraine) [2025] EWHC 795 (Fam).
The case considered acquiescence and grave risk and on the assumption of settlement, the judge would decline discretion to order return, noting that in settlement cases the Convention’s ‘hot pursuit’ objective cannot be met and that T’s integration, the resumed, although fragile, paternal relationship, and uncertainty over the mother’s involvement on return militated against a summary order.
An ad hoc bid for return under the inherent jurisdiction was refused and the case was dismissed.
