No matter how amicable it might be, the break up of any family often carries considerable consequences for the adults concerned.

The legacy, be it financial or emotional or both, is sometimes still felt long after partners or spouses have gone their separate ways.

The effect of such sentiments can be multiplied when there are children involved.

Mitigating the potential for lasting negative impact is one reason why immense effort has been invested in ensuring that the views of children are taken into account wherever possible and appropriate.

The legislation which is applied to the details of child arrangements once parents split – the Children Act 1989 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/1) – makes just such a point explicit.

It notes that, in arriving at their decisions, family courts should bear in mind “the ascertainable wishes and feelings of the child concerned”.

That is usually done in the form of a report (known as a ‘section 7 report’) by the body which represents the interests of children in family court proceedings, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service – or Cafcass, for short.

Nowadays, there is greater recognition of the importance of trying to resolve parental differences without the need for court proceedings, using one of a number of non-court dispute resolution (NCDR) methods.

One is Child Inclusive Mediation, which gives children the opportunity to share their worries and concerns in a less pressured manner.

However, whilst there is consensus about the need to hear what children have to say, a new UK Supreme Court ruling has underlined how it should be a factor in the decision arrived at in the context of Hague Convention proceedings but not necessarily the most important one (https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2026_0074_0080_judgment_f74195ccf7.pdf).

The judgement came in the case of an expatriate British couple who had been living in Florida with their two children.

The Court heard that they had travelled together to Scotland in the summer of 2025 for a family holiday. During the vacation, the mother informed her husband that she intended to stay in Scotland with their children – then aged 14 and eight-years-old respectively – and not return to the United States.

She acknowledged that preventing both children going back to their American home against the wishes of her husband was a breach of an international agreement designed to protect children from “the harmful effects” of parental child abduction.

The 1980 Child Abduction Convention, which is usually simply referred to the Hague Convention, established a procedure between signatory states to allow for a prompt return of any children taken or retained (https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/specialised-sections/child-abduction).

Such abductions are, sadly, far from unusual. Evidence presented to the UK parliament last year suggested that there are roughly 500 Hague Convention applications made each year for the return of children allegedly abducted by parents (https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/149007/default/).

In the recent case heard by the UK Supreme Court, the father was appealing against a decision by Scottish courts that the children should not return to the US.

That was because their mother invoked one defence written into the Hague Convention. Article 13(b) stated that a child taken by its parent might not have to be returned if doing so would expose him or her to a “grave risk” of physical or psychological harm.

The older of the two children in the latest case had stated that he wished to live with his father in the US but his mother argued that the risk of harm existed, in part, because of her serious mental health problems.

Judges found that she not only had a long history of mental health problems but, by the time of the judgement, had twice attempted suicide. A Scottish judge had already concluded that there was “a real risk” of her committing suicide, something which would “be traumatic for both children and would cause them extreme psychological harm” – a point accepted by her husband.

The Supreme Court ruled that even though suicide was a possibility rather than a certainty, it could still happen and, therefore, amounted to a sufficiently grave risk to justify their not ordering the return to the US of both children.

In doing so, it added clarity regarding the opinions of children in such proceedings.

Jointly handing down the judgement, Lord Stephens and Lord Snowden explained that although the older child’s views should have been listened to by the Scottish court, those “views are not determinative, and it is for the court to determine what, if any, weight to attach to them”.

That might be because of allegations that they could be influenced or manipulated by one parent, as was alleged in this case.

Interestingly, the Supreme Court judgement was delivered only weeks after the publication of research by the University of Manchester which found that children involved in family proceedings could experience “serious harm to their mental and physical health because their voices are too often ignored or dismissed” (https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/family-courts-must-do-more/).

In almost a decade since it was established, the specialist Children Law team at Hall Brown Family Law has advised clients in many cases where the views of children are important elements in determining optimal arrangements for their future upbringing.

Many of those matters have, like the issue just decided by the Supreme Court, been brought under the Hague Convention, while others have involved countries in which the terms of the Convention are not applied.

I believe that this new judgement is a reminder of how listening to what children have to say can be very useful in building a more complete picture of family relations, no matter the country or context.

Nevertheless, those opinions should not be counted as the most important factor of all in family courts arriving at a decision, particularly in an international context.