PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY, TRICKERY AND THE FAMILY COURTS 

Published on 21 March, 2025 | Rachel Cocker

At the heart of many – if not most – of the matters which come before family courts is love.

They can feature challenging discussions and emotional disputes relating to the end of relationships and arrangements for children.

Those unfamiliar with the workings of family justice might, therefore, be surprised to learn that the results of its deliberations are determined by the law and not matters of the heart.

However, a recently reported case has provided an example of a judgement in which the central issue was whether parents motivated by love for their son acted legally or not (https://assets.caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/fam/2025/439/ewhc_fam_2025_439.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email).

The matter involved a 14-year-old boy, one of three children born to a couple who had moved from Ghana to the UK.

Whilst his older sisters “flourished”, his parents became concerned both about his diligence at school and the company which he was keeping.

During proceedings in the High Court, Mr Justice Hayden described, for example, how the teenager had developed an “unhealthy interest in knives”.

In March last year and on the pretence of visiting his paternal grandfather, the boy travelled with his parents to Ghana, unaware that they had enrolled him in a college there before they returned alone to the UK.

The judge summarised the move as resulting from the parents’ genuine worry for their son’s safety if he remained in London.

The boy’s father told the court that he did not want his son to be “yet another black teenager stabbed to death in the streets of London”.

At first, convinced that his stay was only for the short-term, the “outraged” son eventually contacted the British consulate and an organisation called Children and Families Across Borders (CFAB), a charity that provides advice in international child protection cases.

The charity applied on his behalf for him to be made a ward of court and allowed back to the UK after he had spent six months in Africa.

Although such orders were indeed initially made, they have now been overturned.

One part of the process leading to that outcome was a welfare report which found that, despite his objections, it was actually in the boy’s best interests to remain in Ghana.

According to the Children Act 1989 – the legislation which governs such proceedings handled by the family court –  the welfare of children is the “paramount consideration” (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/1).

Mr Justice Hayden acknowledged that, given the boy’s age, “his views are to be afforded significant, though not determinative weight”.

The central factor in the judge’s thinking was whether the boy’s parents acted lawfully in taking what appears on the face of it to be drastic action.

That came down to whether they had exceeded their parental responsibility, something defined by the Children Act 1989 as “all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property” until that child turns 18 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/3).

Mr Justice Hayden noted that “parents, in most cases, will be better placed to take important decisions concerning their child” – or, as a previous President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir James Munby, had once remarked: “judges do not necessarily know best”.

Mr Justice Hayden said that he understood the realisation that he had been “tricked” would be “very distressing” for the teenager to accept.

After all, the boy was “entitled to look for and expect truth, honesty and respect from his parents”.

However, the judge concluded that the boy was “at real risk of suffering greater harm in returning to the UK than if he were to remain in Ghana”, something which was “both a sobering and rather depressing conclusion”.

On that basis, Mr Justice Hayden said the steps taken by the boy’s parents were “driven by their deep, obvious, and unconditional love for their son” and fell “within what I regard as the generous ambit of parental decision taking, in which the State has no dominion”.

Whilst the judgement may have substantial consequences for relations within the family concerned, the charity which acted for the boy has outlined how the circumstances are far from unique (https://www.thetimes.com/article/e379283e-5b5f-4b27-8217-e21ce76d313b?shareToken=04f7dea9daceebe404ab1eb3b0a4a3cc).

The case in question illustrates the extreme measures which some parents are prompted to go to in order to ensure the well-being and safety of their children.

Not every matter may be quite as dramatic but when mothers and fathers act in accordance with the law to protect their children, family courts will not always consider it necessary to intervene.