If my son was born in Italy, will my dickhead Italian ex get residence?

[OutsSelf]

Posting here for traffic, and asking for a friend.

DC is 6 and has lived in the UK for nearly 5 years, with DM. DM is British and has always been main carer. DC is at school here.

Parents are splitting, with the father returning to Italy. He is abusive and controlling and DM is concerned that she will have to fight him for residence. He shows little interest in actually looking after his son in any meaningful way but has, in his words, babysat recently while DM has been working (along with a range of other adults, including me). He has also taken his son to Italy for a holiday, twice, without the DM. Paid for, arranged and facilitated by the DM, btw, who has honestly been hanging on trying to build a relationship between the DF and DS.

DM is terrified of having to go to court in Italy about this. Does anyone know how it would be dealt with? Would family court here hear the case if the father wanted to pursue residence in Italy for his son?

Ianal but my understanding is that if the child lives here and goes to school here is Uk is his place of ordinary residence.

Uk court should hear custody - remember court is different across the UK.

Is the child currently here i.e. He hasn't been detained in Italy by his father? If he has things will be different, if he is in This country your friend should go and see a family lawyer for advice.

I think if a child has an actual parent willing to look after them , then that is usually what is preferred. Why do you not have your child OP? Why is your mother raising your child?

Make sure any hearing is held in a UK court. It is important for the mother to start this process before the father starts in Italy.

UK court will look at the best interests of the child. Relationship between parents is not usually relevant. In these circumstances it is likely to determine that child should live with mother during term time and spend time with father during holidays.

You say ex is abusive and controlling. Is this behaviour directed towards the child or the mother? Has it been documented? Are police/ social services involved? Answers may impact on any court ruling.

It is almost always in the best intersts of a child to maintain a positive relationship with the non resident parent.

This is not my child, I am asking for a friend, as I have stated.

The child is in this country and has been resident here since he was 18m

Branleuse - the post is confusing. The title is written in the first person, but the post is written in the third person (for a friend). So DM is the child's mother, not the OP's mother.

As for the OP's question - I know nothing whatsoever about this so can't comment.

Oops, cross post.

The abusive control is directed towards the mother, but the DF recently made his son touch a hot pan 'to teach him that it was dangerous'. He also pointed the child's attention to top shelf, pornographic material. None of this is logged with anyone in authority.

No, the father won't be able to take the child to live in Italy. She needs to apply for a prohibited steps order asap, and start the process of getting a residence and contact order sorted.

I have experience of this in that I fled an abusive relationship and left Italy with my Italian born child (on a British passport, thankfully hadn't got italian citizenship sorted although ex was a dual national). I weighed up the pros and cons and was in full knowledge of the fact that this was against Hague conventions as I was removing the child from 'place of habitual residence'. I knew full well that the police could have been at my door at the request of my ex and we could have been forced to surrender travel docs and return to Italy. It was a stressful few years!

Place of habitual residence is the important bit here. The ex has no rights to remove the child to Italy. Make sure the passport office is informed that there is an application for residence being made (and hopefully a prohibited steps order) and it will be flagged up at immigration every time. I chose not to do this on renewal of dc's passport as didn't want there to be issues every time they went on holiday with their father- there's no way he'd want to have them f/t, he couldn't cope and 10 years on contact etc is going ok.

Your friend needs to contact a solicitor and get it set in stone - an Italian court would be incredibly unlikely to persue it if a British Court already has a residence order stamped.

Your friend needs to apply for a prohibited steps order immediately, put a marker so things are flagged at immigration and stop facilitating ex taking dc abroad until this is done.

Thanks all, this is so helpful

We are going to sort the PSO and get an appointment with a family lawyer with EU residency experience ASAP

She's considering sending him the CAFCASS parenting plan because if he can feel this is all his decision it might not be such a battle

My son was born in a different country. His dad had permanent residency in the county and I had temporary residency. His father had lived there since 18 months.

We both are British.

When I wanted to return to U.K. a solicitor in that country told me his dad couldn't prevent it as ds held a British passport and was British.

What passport does the DC hold?
What nationality are they?

I don't know exact rules but these things will have an effect on the process.

However, if the child and BOTH his parents are usually resident in the U.K. and the father will be removing the child from his place of residence to his country of birth it's very unlikely the courts will agree this is in the best interests of the child as the father has also chosen for his D.C. to be raised here.

PSO is a great place to start.