Holiday Romance - It Could all End in Tears

Many single women holidaying this summer will enjoy romance under the sun – of course, some of those relationships will be short lived but there are a growing number of women who meet their future partners while on vacation which leads them to establish new lives abroad.

Of those women who go on to have children in foreign countries, it’s surprising to realise that few know that should the relationship go sour, they could find themselves trapped with their offspring miles away from their family in England.

One person who did not contemplate being in such a situation is Jane from Manchester*. She was 24 when she went on a sun holiday to Greece in 2002. While there she met and married a local man and went on to have two children, four-year old Nicholas, and Amy, two. Due to her husband’s excessive drinking and abusive behaviour, their relationship deteriorated and she felt she had little choice but to come back to England. In desperation, she and the children left without telling her husband and came back to Manchester last year.

Nick Hodson, a Partner at Stephensons Solicitors LLP, is a specialist in the law relating to children and is a member of the REUNITE panel of solicitors, with expertise on child abduction. Nick has been involved with several international abduction cases like Jane’s.

He said: “It may seem a strong word to use but Jane’s actions in taking her children out of the country they lived in is a case of parental abduction, an internationally recognised legal term. In order to have them returned, her husband started legal proceedings under the terms of the Hague Convention. This is a civil legal remedy available to parents seeking the return of their children who have been wrongfully removed to another country. This procedure seeks to deal fairly and quickly with cases of parental child abduction.”

As the children had always lived in Greece and as such were classed as being ‘habitually resident’ there, the courts in England ruled that they must return to Greece. They said it was for the courts in Greece to determine future custody and access arrangements, and if Jane wanted to leave the country with the children she would need either her husband’s consent or a court order in Greece.

Jane had no option but to return with her children. The fact that her husband was a drunk and had been violent was not relevant. Furthermore, because the children were so young, it meant that any wishes and feelings they had about not going back were not taken into account. The fact that the children had British passports is also immaterial.

Nick added: “Jane’s predicament is a familiar one – unless she obtained the father’s permission or a court order, the courts in England are always likely to return the children to the original country. It highlights a very important issue many people are unaware of – that international law states that it’s for the country of the children’s habitual residence to decide where they should live and not, in this case, the children’s mother.”