XM v XF

In determining child-arrangements disputes, the court must focus on the children’s welfare and balance the value of each parent’s involvement against their need for emotional security and stability. Where children have experienced distress from parental conflict and repeated changes, arrangements may properly be reduced temporarily and increased incrementally through a structured road map. The court should avoid unnecessary prescription while providing predictability and consistency. A restriction on a parent’s parental responsibility requires an evidential basis showing that the restriction is necessary to protect the children. Court intervention should remain a remedy of last resort where parents can responsibly resolve future issues through communication, mediation or parental co-ordination.

The proceedings concerned arrangements for two young children whose parents had separated while living in Dubai. The mother sought private-law orders, including child-arrangements directions, restrictions on the father’s parental responsibility, and protective orders. Earlier orders had established regular contact, but the children showed emotional distress associated with parental conflict, separation from their mother and changing routines.

The court considered the children’s welfare, the evidence of the parents and an independent social worker, the appropriate progression of contact, indirect contact, travel arrangements and whether the father’s parental responsibility should be limited.

1. Jurisdiction. The court had jurisdiction over the child-related matters on the agreed statutory basis, including the Children Act 1989, the Family Law Act 1986 and the Family Law Act 1996, as interpreted in Lachaux v Lachaux [2019] EWCA Civ 738.
2. Welfare and contact. The children’s welfare required a period of respite and stability while preserving their important relationship with their father. Their emotional distress, young ages, sibling relationship and need for secure attachment justified a staged reduction and later increase in overnight contact. The court adopted a three-stage road map, beginning with limited overnight stays and progressing, if matters proceeded well, to three overnight stays on alternate weekends together with additional weekday time.
3. Practical arrangements. Predictability, routine, forward planning and flexibility were central. Daily telephone or FaceTime contact was retained because it provided reassurance and caused no demonstrated difficulty. The parents were expected to facilitate contact with the other parent and to arrange extended-family visits during holidays where practicable.
4. Parental responsibility. No order limiting or diluting the parties’ shared parental responsibility was made. Although the father’s conduct concerning the child’s illness and his involvement of his family had been inappropriate, it did not establish that a restriction was necessary. Each parent remained entitled to make immediate decisions in a medical or other emergency and had to notify the other promptly.
5. Final orders. The court brought the proceedings to an end, directed that the children’s passports be held by the mother subject to release for specified purposes, and encouraged mediation or parental co-ordination. Future court applications were to be regarded as a remedy of last resort.

The judgment was a first-instance decision of the High Court (Family Division). Earlier interim orders had been made by Judd J, Cohen J and Francis J during 2020, before the final hearing before Mrs Justice Roberts.