Partner Renato Labi, Senior Associate Ellie Hiskett and paralegal Surya Dawar, instructing Mark Jarman KC of 4PB, successfully represented the respondent father in defending an application under the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985. The court determined that the children had retained habitual residence in England, despite the mother’s diplomatic posting abroad to “State A”, and the family’s temporary relocation there.

The Honourable Mr Justice Hayden found that the father had not unlawfully retained the children in London, as they had not become habitually resident in State A, noting “Whilst I do not discount the theoretical possibility that children might, within the first few months of a time limited diplomatic parental posting, integrate into life in another country so completely that their habitual residence transfers […] I nonetheless consider the temporary nature of such a posting will in many cases generate, at very least, a tension which both inhibits a sense of permanence in a foreign country and impedes disengagement from the children’s English environment.”

This case will be a useful precedent for scenarios involving temporary relocations associated with a parent’s work.

The applicant mother has since made a relocation application for the children to relocate to State A, which is listed to be heard in August 2026.

The judgment from the national archives can be found here.