LM (A Child: Return Order to the UAE; Humanitarian Protection), Re

In a non-Convention return application, the child’s welfare remains paramount. A return order follows a welfare determination: habitual residence and wrongful removal inform the evaluation but do not decide it, and the court must conduct proportionate fact-finding on disputed domestic-abuse allegations.

Humanitarian protection is subsidiary protection and does not create an automatic bar based on non-refoulement. Risk must instead be assessed within the welfare evaluation and under the child’s rights in the European Convention on Human Rights 1950, including Articles 2, 3 and 8. Return is impermissible where it would expose the child to a real Article 3 risk. On the evidence, return was necessary and proportionate, and a return order was made.

The mother applied under the inherent jurisdiction for the return of LM, aged three, from the United Kingdom to the UAE. The father opposed the application, relying on alleged FGM risk, domestic abuse by the mother and neglect. LM had been removed from the UAE in breach of custody orders and was later granted humanitarian protection in the United Kingdom with her father.

The court conducted a composite fact-finding and welfare hearing. The central issues were the disputed allegations, the legal effect of the humanitarian protection grant, the risks of refoulement and breach of ECHR Articles 2, 3 and 8, and whether return was in LM’s welfare interests.

Application granted. The court made a return order and directed a swift handover of LM from the father to the mother.

1. Non-Convention return framework. Applying Re A and B (Children) (Summary-Return: Non-Convention State) [2022] EWCA Civ 1664, Re J (Child Returned Abroad: Convention Rights) [2006] UKHL 40, Re NY (A Child) [2019] UKSC 49 and J v J (Return to Non-Hague Convention Country) [2021] EWHC 2412, the court treated the application as requiring a welfare determination. Welfare was paramount. The court considered the appropriate matters under section 1(3) of the Children Act 1989, conducted the necessary fact-finding, and treated habitual residence and wrongful removal as relevant but non-determinative.
2. Fact-finding and risk. The court applied the guidance in Re S (Children: Transnational Marriage Abandonment) [2025] EWCA Civ 1058 and Re H-N and Others (children) (domestic abuse: Finding of fact hearings) [2021] EWCA Civ 448. Coercive or controlling behaviour could harm a child even without direct violence, and abduction could constitute domestic abuse. Applying the macro- and micro-factor approach in Re X (Female Genital Mutilation Protection Order No 2) [2019] EWHC 1990, the court found no material FGM risk in the mother’s care. The father’s FGM allegations and allegations of neglect were rejected.
3. Humanitarian protection and refoulement. Humanitarian protection was a subsidiary form of protection and did not automatically attract the Refugee Convention’s prohibition on refoulement. The court distinguished the pending-protection situation in G v G (Secretary of State for the Home Department and others intervening) [2021] UKSC 9, and applied the broader analysis summarised in AAA (Syria) [2023] UKSC 42. Risk had to be addressed within the welfare evaluation and the relevant ECHR rights. A separate non-refoulement analysis was unnecessary, but return could not be ordered if it created a real Article 3 risk.
4. Welfare and proportionality. The court found that the father had subjected the mother to a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour, including abduction, and that LM had suffered serious emotional harm. The mother could meet LM’s needs; the father could meet her physical and educational needs but not her emotional needs. The short-term disruption and likely effect on LM’s relationship with her father were outweighed by the long-term benefits of safety, stability and care by the mother. The interference with the Article 8 rights of LM and the father was necessary and proportionate.
5. Consequential direction. Because of the father’s history of disregarding court orders and the risk of further absconding, the court directed that LM be handed over swiftly to the mother.

The judgment records that the UAE Family Court made a custody order in the mother’s favour on 27 April 2024 and that the father’s appeal was unsuccessful. No appeal from the present decision is stated.