TV Presenter in Child Abduction Claims
It is reported that TV presenter Melissa Porter, having recently successfully defeated a claim by her former boyfriend that she had abducted her son by bringing him back to the UK to live with her, is now faced with similar proceedings being brought in the USA. So how has this happened?
Melissa met her former boyfriend in London before the moving to the USA to be with him and where their son was born. Later, wanting to return to the UK to work, she moved back here bringing their son with her, understanding that his father wanted to move to the UK with her. They subsequently separated, on what Melissa thought to be friendly terms, then to find herself faced with claims that she had abducted the child.
Most cases involving allegations of international child abduction are governed by the Hague Convention. Under the convention child abduction can be either a move from one country to another (removal) or if a child is kept in another country and not returned (wrongful retention), for example at the end of a holiday or a contact arrangement.
For a removal of a child from one country to another or a retention to be “child abduction” under the Hague Convention, the child has to be habitually resident in the country from where it is taken, the move has to be in breach of “rights of custody” of someone else and the “rights of custody” have to be exercised at the time of the move.
There are limited defences namely, if more than a year has passed since the removal or retention of the child and the child is settled in its new environment, if the person with “rights of custody” agreed to the removal or retention either beforehand or afterwards, if “there is a grave risk that his or her return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation”, or if “the child objects to being returned and has attained an age and degree of maturity at which it is appropriate to take account of its views.” These are the only defences and they are interpreted very narrowly.
Clearly Melissa was able to satisfy the court that there had not been either a wrongful removal or a wrongful retention and it is difficult to see how taking proceedings in the USA will improve relations between the parents or be in the best interests of the child.
