| Following Lord Osborne’s decision at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, arrangements will now have to be made to take the children, two girls and a boy, back to live with their mother in France.
Meanwhile, they have been placed under the protection of Dundee City Council whose officers will supervise their place of residence and be authorised to take steps to ensure their protection.
The children were living in Dundee with their father and older brother, after the man had taken them all out of France while exercising contact rights with the younger children following his divorce.
The mother turned to the Court of Session to seek an order for the return of the three children under 16 under the Child Abduction and Custody Act, and won an order for their return after her worldwide search for the missing youngsters paid off when she recognised her daughter’s picture on a Dundee school pupil’s Internet blog.
The court heard that, following lengthy and acrimonious divorce and custody proceedings in the French courts, in 2002 an order was made that the three youngest children were to live with their mother, while the older son should stay with his father.
But, in July 2005, the man disappeared with the children and they started a new life in Dundee.
Criminal charges were also brought against the father in France following the children’s removal from the country. He was sentenced to 30 months’ in prison in his absence and extradition proceedings have been brought.
In today’s judgment, Lord Osborne upheld Lord Turnbull’s original judgment, rejecting several points made by the father’s legal team.
However, he ruled that it would not be appropriate for the three children to be removed immediately and returned to France as an interim measure, finding that it would have amounted to a compromise of the issues raised in the case.
He said, “Nevertheless, we considered it was appropriate to take some action in this connection. Accordingly we have pronounced an interlocutor, requesting Dundee City Council to supervise the residence of the children at their present place of residence and, if so advised, make an application to the sheriff relating to their protection, if they consider that appropriate in any particular circumstances.”
Lord Osborne also ordered the issue of expenses incurred by the curator ad litem, who was appointed by the appeal court to investigate the children’s circumstances, and who issued a report stating she did not support the father’s reclaiming motion, to be addressed. |
