Child abduction

In England and Wales, child abduction and kidnapping are not the same thing. In fact, there are specific laws that say that, if a child is abducted by their parent, this is not kidnapping. This is because there is a separate offence of child abduction.

Prevention is undoubtedly better than cure. There are lots of practical steps you can take:

• Collect important information and documents (eg, passports, birth and marriage certificates, court orders, recent photographs) copy them and keep them safe with a lawyer or a trusted friend.
• Look out for warning signs: this could be outright or veiled threats, changes in behaviour, asking for your child’s passport or birth certificate without giving an obvious reason, selling their house or business, or even giving notice of a move to your child’s school or nursery.
• If you do not have parental responsibility for your child, take legal advice about getting it.
• Contact the Passport Office as you may be able to stop your child getting a passport (although you will probably need a court order).
• If your child could be entitled to a passport from another country, check with that country’s Embassy or Consulate. You can ask them not to issue a passport to your child or for them not to be included on anyone else’s passport. Whilst not obliged to do so, they may follow your request.
• If you have real concerns that an abduction could happen, inform your child’s school or nursery and provide them with any court orders you have.
• Speak to a child abduction lawyer. They will be able to advise you on the different options available to you, including applying to the court for prohibited steps orders (stopping the other parent from taking your child out of the country), location and collection orders (allowing specialist enforcement officers to get information about your child and collect them from an address where they are known to be), a port alert (which is an alert the police send out to airports etc alerting them that your child should not be allowed to leave the country).

It is a criminal offence to take a child out of the UK without the consent of everybody with parental responsibility unless the court has given permission. The maximum penalty is seven years’ imprisonment.

If you do not have parental responsibility for your child, your ex does not need to ask for your permission to take your child out of the country. In an emergency, there is little you can do to stop your child from travelling. It would be sensible to speak to a family lawyer about how you can get parental responsibility for your child, either through a parental responsibility agreement or a court order.

Child abduction happens when a child is taken out of the UK. It is not a criminal offence to take a child from England to Scotland or Northern Ireland, although we strongly recommend that you discuss your proposed move or holiday with the other parent and get their agreement before doing anything. If you don’t, you risk a court order being made that your child must return to England and then legal proceedings taking place to decide things such as whether a move to Scotland should be allowed. 

There are three defences for child abduction:

• That you believed that the other parent had agreed or would have agreed had they been aware of all the circumstances.
• That you took all reasonable steps to communicate to the other parent your intention to take your child, but had been unable to do so.
• That the other parent unreasonably refused to give their consent.

However, if the person who refused to agree has a child arrangements order that states the child is to live with them or they have a special guardianship order, this defence is not available to you. It is also not available if there is a court order preventing the child from leaving the country.

If your child has been abducted from the UK, there is an international Convention (or set of rules) that is designed to quickly return your child. This is called the Hague Convention. Over 100 countries have signed up to the Hague Convention, including the UK. Of those signed up countries, the UK has agreements with over 80 of them meaning there is a network of countries who work with the UK to return children back to the country they usually live in. These countries include the United States, Poland, Australia and Ireland. If your child is abducted to another Hague Convention country that the UK has an agreement with, it tends to be easier to have your child returned. This is still a complex area of law, so do speak to a child abduction lawyer.

When a child is abducted to a non-Hague Convention country, the Hague Convention rules and networks don’t exist. It can be much harder and take longer to get your child back because you either have to agree the return with the person who has taken your child or you have to start court proceedings possibly both in England and in the country they have been taken to. What your options are will depend on which other country is involved. For example, the UK has specific child abduction agreements with Pakistan and Egypt. However, there are countries – such as Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and India – where there is no agreed system in place. This is a complex area and legal advice is essential.