B, Re

In determining a child’s living and schooling arrangements, the court must treat the child’s welfare as paramount and weigh the competing benefits and risks of each realistic option. A substantial relationship with both parents may justify near-equal care, but the arrangements must reflect the child’s history, need for stability, exposure to parental conflict and each parent’s practical capacity. Where there is a credible risk of further abduction, international travel with the relevant parent may be refused for the foreseeable future. Orders may be structured conditionally so that relocation by a parent permits equal care, while preserving substantial contact if relocation does not occur.

The proceedings concerned arrangements for a child who had been taken by his mother from England to China without the father’s agreement and was recovered after approximately a year. The child had subsequently re-established a relationship with both parents and was spending substantial periods with each of them.

The court had to decide where the child should attend school, how his time should be divided between his parents, and whether he should be permitted to travel abroad, particularly to China. The central issue was which arrangements best promoted his welfare while protecting him from further abduction and parental conflict.

1. Welfare and schooling. The child’s welfare was the paramount consideration. The court assessed the advantages and disadvantages of schooling in London and Surrey, including the effect on each parent’s ability to provide care, the child’s need for stability, the risk of renewed conflict, and the parents’ respective capacities. Surrey was selected because the proposed London arrangement involved too many uncertainties and would impose another significant change on the child.
2. Care arrangements. The child had a close relationship with both parents and both had much to offer him. It was in his interests to spend substantial time with each parent, and it was not appropriate, against the history of the case, for his time with his father to fall below half where equal care could realistically be achieved. The order therefore provided that, if the mother moved within a reasonable distance of the Surrey school, the child would have an exactly equal entitlement to term-time and holiday care with each parent. If she remained in London, he would spend most non-school time with her, including three weekends out of four and the preponderance of school holidays.
3. International travel. The risk that the mother might again take the child to China, or onward from another destination, was too high. The fact that she was then expressing a commitment to remain in England did not sufficiently reduce the risk. Travel abroad with the mother was therefore refused for the foreseeable future, probably until the child was old enough to make his own decision.
4. Practical directions. Both parents were directed to attend a Separated Parents Information Programme. The parties were given time to propose a detailed calendar, which the court expected to approve with the Guardian’s involvement.