Button v Salama & Anor

Where a child who is a ward of court has been abducted abroad and cannot be located, the court may seek diplomatic assistance to enable the child’s location and the enforcement of an existing custody order. A court may also direct that its findings be sent to prosecuting authorities for consideration of possible criminal offences. The court may rely on established findings concerning a party’s continuing complicity where the evidence provides no reason to revisit them.

The applicant sought further assistance concerning her daughter, a British citizen and ward of court who had been missing in Egypt since 2011. Earlier High Court orders required the father to disclose the child’s whereabouts and procure her return. The father had served substantial periods of imprisonment for contempt but continued to deny knowledge of the child’s location.

The applicant had obtained custody orders from the Egyptian courts, but could not enforce them because the child’s whereabouts remained unknown. The central issues were whether the father remained actively complicit in the child’s concealment and what further steps the court should take.

1. Findings concerning the father. The court was satisfied, to the criminal standard, that the father’s assertion that he did not know the child’s whereabouts was false. The child’s continued abduction was carried out with his active complicity and at his behest. The earlier findings made by Mr Justice Holman remained valid.
2. The father’s allegations against the mother, relied on to justify his conduct, were untrue and constituted an aggravating factor. The court noted that the father could not be further punished for continuing contempt in circumstances where he had already served the relevant periods of imprisonment.
3. Criminal investigation. The court directed that a copy of the judgment be sent to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police for consideration of possible proceedings for conspiracy to commit the offence under section 2 of the Child Abduction Act 1984 and for perjury.
4. Diplomatic assistance. The court formally requested the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to use available diplomatic measures, through the British embassy in Egypt or otherwise, to seek the assistance of the Egyptian authorities in locating the child. Once located, the mother could seek to enforce the Egyptian custody order.
5. The case was adjourned to the Easter term. The Secretary of State was invited to report what steps had been taken, by written submission or through counsel.

This was a first-instance decision. The judgment described earlier High Court proceedings concerning orders for disclosure and return, including decisions reported at [2013] EWHC 4152 (Fam), [2013] EWHC 2972 (Fam) and [2013] EWHC 2474 (Fam). It also referred to custody orders made by the Egyptian courts.