A v B

In a relocation case, the court must evaluate the practical consequences of refusing relocation for the applicant parent and the consequential effect on the child’s welfare. Merely recording that the parent will be upset or disappointed is insufficient where the consequences may affect care, relationships or livelihood.

The court must fairly assess factors supporting and opposing each option, including existing contact arrangements, proposed safeguards and evidence favourable to the applicant. A judgment must explain the underlying rationale sufficiently for the parties to understand the result and for an appellate court to assess its sustainability. Cumulative failures to evaluate material considerations may undermine both the welfare assessment and consequential child arrangements.

The appellant mother applied for permission to relocate with her eight-year-old son from England to Poland, where her partner lived. The respondent father opposed the application. The parents had separated after a highly acrimonious relationship but had operated a shared-care arrangement.

The Family Court, sitting at Leeds, refused permission to relocate and ordered that the child spend alternate weeks with each parent. The mother appealed, alleging inadequate evaluation of the consequences of refusal, insufficient weight given to her promotion of contact and relocation proposals, an unbalanced finding that she had medicalised the child’s presentation, and inadequate reasons for departing from professional recommendations.

The central issue was whether the Recorder’s welfare evaluation and reasons sufficiently addressed the material evidence relevant to relocation and the resulting care arrangements.

1. Appeal allowed. The appeal was allowed and the matter was remitted for rehearing before a Circuit Judge. The decision to refuse relocation and the consequential shared-care order could not stand.
2. The appellate court must respect the trial judge’s advantage in seeing and hearing witnesses and should be slow to interfere with factual conclusions or the weight attributed to relevant matters. Intervention is justified where the original decision is wrong or affected by serious procedural or other irregularity.
3. The Recorder failed to evaluate adequately the consequences of refusal for the mother and, in turn, for the child. The judgment referred to the mother being devastated or extremely upset but did not analyse the effect of the proposed loss of her home arrangements, the child’s relationship with his cousin, her ability to earn a living, or her inability to pursue her relationship with her partner in Poland. It also failed to assess how those matters might affect her ability to care for the child in the short and long term.
4. The Recorder failed to give proper consideration to factors supporting relocation. These included the mother’s history of complying with the shared-care arrangements, her contact proposals, the father’s regular travel to Poland, his accommodation there and the proximity of paternal family. Those matters were relevant to the assessment of the future risk that contact would not be promoted.
5. The finding that the mother had deliberately exaggerated or invented the child’s difficulties lacked a fair assessment of the evidence. The Recorder did not refer to her acceptance of Dr Harrison’s conclusions or consider whether that evidence supported a more benign explanation. Because the finding formed the basis of the assessment of future risk, the imbalance materially undermined the reasoning.
6. The cumulative effect of these errors fatally undermined the reasoning supporting both the refusal of relocation and the shared-care order. Nothing in the appellate judgment was to influence the outcome of the rehearing.

• High Court (Family Division): Permission to appeal was granted and the appeal from the Family Court decision was allowed. The refusal of relocation and the shared-care arrangements were set aside for rehearing.
• Family Court sitting at Leeds: Recorder Howe Q.C. refused permission for the mother to relocate the child to Poland and ordered alternate-week shared care. The judgment was dated 14 July 2017.