Taukacs v Taukaca

A location order must be construed according to its actual terms. An order directed to securing a child’s location and preventing the child’s removal from England and Wales does not, without clear wording, prohibit the respondent parent from travelling personally. Ambiguous wording in a standard form order should not be treated as imposing a restriction on personal liberty. Where the order requires surrender of the respondent’s passport, responsibility for securing compliance lies with those executing and interpreting the order if its language is unclear. A person should not be arrested or detained for contempt where the order did not clearly prohibit the conduct in question.

The father issued proceedings under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction seeking the summary return to Latvia of the parties’ thirteen-year-old son, who had been brought to England by the mother. A High Court judge made a standard Form 1A location order requiring the Tipstaff to locate the child and requiring specified passports and travel documents to be surrendered.

The mother surrendered the child’s passport but retained her own after police officers told her that she could travel to Spain. She was later removed from an aircraft, arrested and detained on the basis that she had breached the order by retaining her passport and attempting to leave England. The central issue was whether the order prohibited the mother from travelling personally and whether she had breached any of its requirements.

1. The mother had not breached the location order. She had surrendered the child’s passport, and the child had remained at the address where he was staying when the order was served. She had neither removed nor knowingly permitted the child to be removed from England and Wales.
2. Paragraph 4 of the order was directed to the whereabouts of the child. It prohibited causing or permitting the child to be removed from the jurisdiction, but it did not expressly prohibit the respondent parent from leaving England and Wales.
3. Paragraph 2(b), requiring surrender of every passport relating to the respondent which would enable the defendant to leave England and Wales, contained serious ambiguities. The order did not identify who was meant by “the defendant”, and its language was capable of misleading police officers into thinking that the restriction concerned someone other than the respondent.
4. The court observed that careful consideration was required before restricting an individual parent’s freedom to travel where the child could be prevented from travelling independently. Ambiguous standard wording could not fairly support arrest and detention for contempt, particularly where the police had expressly told the mother that she could travel.
5. The mother was released immediately. The judge apologised for the injustice and directed that the judgment be urgently brought to the attention of the President of the Family Division and the Tipstaff so that the standard form of location order could be clarified and improved.