Court refuses to direct boy’s return to mother who ‘set face against’ aiding father’s access

The High Court has refused to direct the return of a boy to Ireland to live with his mother who “set her face against” facilitating court-ordered access with his father.

Mr Justice John Jordan said it would not be in the child’s interests to delay the effects of the Circuit Court’s decision to direct his transfer to the United Kingdom to live with his father.

A transfer of residence order is “significant” in any situation, but “it is an understandable order in this case”, which was heard over four days by the Circuit Court, the judge said.

The mother had asked him to pause the transfer order while her appeal against the wider Circuit Court decision is pending before the High Court.

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In his ruling, published on Friday, Mr Justice Jordan said the mother previously was the primary carer and chose to make it difficult for the father to have contact with their son.

An expert witness before the Circuit Court reported that the boy’s relationship with his father was “at an impasse” as court orders for direct access and video contact were being complied with in “no more than a hit and miss kind of way”.

The witness said the mother did not agree with the earlier court order directing that the boy’s access with his father should take place in the man’s home in the UK.

She made it “very clear” she would not facilitate this court-ordered access and believes any access should occur in Ireland, with the father travelling here at the weekend and following the boy in his activities, the witness said.

She justified her position by saying her son showed significant distress about going to the UK to spend time with his father, but, the witness said, she was able to successfully transfer the boy to his father’s care for a nine-day period when she went to Spain for a holiday.

By contrast, the expert said he believed the father will be “both able and willing” to ensure the child’s access with his mother for whatever period the court orders.

“I believe he will be a more responsible guardian of the child’s opportunities to have an uninterrupted relationship with both his parents into the future.”

Mr Justice Jordan said the Circuit Court, in making its order, would presumably have considered the likelihood that the boy’s relationship with his father would be “completely and utterly sundered and sabotaged if something radical was not done as a matter of urgency– and that the situation had come to that, it seems to me, is the doing of [the boy’s] mother”.

The consequences of her having chosen to set her face against court-ordered access “are her own doing”, the judge said.

The balance of justice sided with refusing the stay. The judge stressed that his ruling did not decide her wider appeal, which he will work to give priority in the court list.

Mr Justice Jordan reserved the issue of legal costs, but he said he is tempted to grant costs against the woman, notwithstanding that she is legally aided, because he is concerned that she is conducting legal strategies to place obstacles in the way of contact between father and son.

The court applications are costing her “little or nothing”, while the father has to pay for his legal representation.