Re Kr (A Minor) (Abduction: Forcible Removal by Parents)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1999 |
| Date | 1999 |
| Court | Family Division |
Child abduction – Child being forcibly removed from jurisdiction to India – Child being made ward of court and judge ordering her return – Competing interests of traditional values of parents and individual integrity of child – Approach to be taken by courts.
At the age of 16, KR, the youngest of three Sikh children, left home to live with her older sister, P, who had left home the year before also against her parents’ wishes and contrary to the traditional norms of their religious, cultural and ethnic group. The police were involved on both sides, P alleging KR was at risk of forcible removal and detention by their parents, and the father reporting her as a missing person, complaining she had effectively been kidnapped. Ultimately the police returned KR to the care of her father. Then, as P feared and had predicted, the father reacted by removing KR to India, where she was left in the custody of her aunt. Upon receiving a letter from KR pleading for help and describing her conditions as a prison, P issued wardship proceedings and KR was made a ward of court, which was continued during her minority. Whilst the parents asserted throughout that KR wished to live in India, that no element of duress or containment was involved, and that they were happy to co-operate with the wardship proceedings, the judge ultimately found that they were deceiving the court and that their intention was that KR should be made to marry one of two selected suitors. With the assistance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the High Commission in New Delhi and Interpol, KR was eventually traced. Thereafter the judge drew up an order inviting the co-operation of the Indian authorities to assist and secure KR’s return to the United Kingdom, and KR was duly returned. Thereafter KR’s position was further protected by injunctions under the Family Law Act 1996 supported by powers of arrest which remained in force protecting both KR and P. The judge gave a formal reserved judgment and authorised its publication in order to increase awareness of the issues which had arisen in the present case.
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a The terms of the order, so far as are relevant, are set out at p 341i–342h, post
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Held – Whilst the English courts were sensitive to traditional and/or religious values and the concept of family, particularly paternal, authority, shared by many minority ethnic and religious communities living in the United Kingdom, the welfare of the individual child or young person would usually prevail. In
the English courts, the voice of the young person would be heard and, in so personal a context as opposition to an arranged or enforced marriage, would prevail. It followed that parents needed to understand that they might face considerable difficulties if they hoped to bring up their children in an English educational system and society at the same time as retaining every aspect of their own traditions and expectations.
Wardship proceedingsThe sister issued wardship proceedings in the High Court seeking the return of her younger sister after she had been forcibly removed to India by her parents following an attempt to leave home. The case was heard and judgment was given in chambers. The case is reported with the permission of Singer J. The facts are set out in the judgment.
Henry Setright (instructed by Dawson Cornwell & Co) for P.
Susan Reed (instructed by the Official Solicitor) for the guardian ad litem.
Sappho Dias (instructed by G Singh) for the parents.
Cur adv vult
18 May 1999. The following judgment was handed down.
SINGER J.Child abduction is still child abduction when both parents are the abductors and the child is very nearly an adult. The circumstances of this case may at first glance appear to be somewhat extreme and unusual, but in fact they highlight the extent to which courts and other agencies concerned need to be alert to safeguard the individual integrity of children from attack, even from their own parents and family. This case has also highlighted what I am sure is not an isolated instance of the risk which adolescents, and in particular young girls, face if and when they seek to depart from the traditional norms of their religious, cultural or ethnic group. In a wider context, this case also illustrates the sort of pressures to which young persons may be subject, driven by the desire of their parents and family that they should marry in the manner culturally expected of them. Similarly there may be (although in this case there was no suggestion of it) an element of exploitation of young persons if in effect treated as goods for sale in a trade, whether that trade be the making of marriages or the improvement of immigration or nationality prospects.
It is because this case in my view throws into sharp focus these difficult situations, most frequently involving minority ethnic and religious groups within our community, that I have decided to give a formal reserved judgment and to authorise its publication. My hope is that practitioners who may not be fully aware of...
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