Here is another case from today's Times:
Court ruling is vindication, says father of abducted girl
A British father whose young daughter was abducted by his wife while on a family holiday in Mexico in 2008 has won a crucial victory in a four-year legal battle.
Jonathan Hunt won the right for all custody or welfare hearings about the future of his daughter, Lydia, to be heard in a British court, rather than in Mexico, and for her to live here until a family court judge decides otherwise.
Mr Hunt?s plight, as he was forced to fight case after case in the Mexican courts to try to bring Lydia back, has been covered extensively by The Times.
Close to tears as he heard the judgment in the High Court yesterday, he said he was ?over the moon?.
He added: ?It?s not a case of winners and losers. The only victim here, as it is in all cases of international abduction, is the child. But I am extremely grateful that the British court has found that a child?s best interests are served by having a close relationship to both its mother and father. I know this is not the end of the legal action but I am prepared to keep going, fuelled by love for my daughter.?
Mr Hunt was eventually reunited with Lydia, now aged 6, in March this year after she was tracked down in Mexico and her mother arrested.
Born in London and a UK citizen, Lydia was abducted by her mother, Maria Obregan, while on holiday in Mexico in May 2008 when she was 2. The mother subsequently severed all contact with Mr Hunt and went on the run for more than three years to evade international law. Mr Hunt spent £140,000 in the Mexican courts trying to establish Lydia?s right to be returned home. Using Mexican constitutional law, his wife was able to challenge each court decision, even though she was a fugitive.
In the end the case became so bogged down in Mexican courts it was the subject of a debate in the House of Commons. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, urged the Mexican Government to do everything in its power to return the child.
Publicity surrounding the case led to a tip-off earlier this year about Lydia?s location. She was found and the mother brought to court. But rather than return the child immediately to the UK, under the terms of the International Hague Convention, a Mexican court urged the couple to come to an agreement about Lydia?s future, including an understanding to make Mexico her permanent residence.
The Mexican judge feared new proceedings under the Hague Convention would be challenged at every step of the way by Ms Obregan and take many months. During this time Lydia would have to stay in a government care home. Signing the agreement allowed Mr Hunt to see Lydia for the first time in almost four years, remove her from the care home and bring her back to the UK for three months.
He agreed to sign ? but that document was the subject of a week-long court case in the High Court in London that ended with a judgment yesterday. Mrs Justice Macur ruled that, given Lydia was made a ward of court in the UK in 2009, a fact that the Mexican judge was unaware of, Mr Hunt did not have the power to agree to change her residence to Mexico. Lydia should therefore stay here and have any future custody case heard in Britain.
Mr Hunt, a project manager from London, was struggling to take in what the court decided when he spoke to The Times. His life has been ravaged by his daughter?s abduction. His health has deteriorated, he has been taking anti-depressants and sleeping tablets and, by his own admission, he has not been able to focus on anything else. ?I have lost friends over this,? he says.
Since being reunited with Lydia in March, his life has been transformed. ?She is the centre of my life. I cannot tell you how I look forward to the weekends and the other times I see her. We just do the normal things together, like going to the park. I think that is important for her. What she has been though, it is a lot of pressure for a 6-year-old to take, too much for her young age.?
Lydia was forced to change homes five times while on the run in Mexico, and to use a series of false names. She is currently living with her mother in England and sees her father several times a week. ?Her English has really come one. It is amazing how quickly a child can pick up a language,? Mr Hunt said.
Mr Hunt urges any parent in his situation to keep fighting. ?Over the years there have been so many times that I have thought of giving up. In the end, I just couldn?t and I would urge others to do the same. If you give up you will never know what could have happened. Use all the resources available to you. Reunite [the charity that advises parents in cases of international abduction] can help you. Your MP can help. The British courts can help.?
As he prepared to see his daughter again this weekend, Mr Hunt said he could still barely believe that he had won this significant victory. ?It is going to take a while to sink in. For four years a great black cloud has hung over my life and now it?s lifting. In my darkest moments ? and there were many ? I wondered whether I was doing the right thing.
?I feel I have been vindicated.?
Why Lydia?s secrecy was lifted
The strict prohibition on media identification of children in family court cases was lifted in the Hunt case by Mrs Justice Macur after an application from The Times, which argued that it was trying to publicise the growth of child abduction cases, which rose by 47 per cent last year. The Times first reported the case last year, to illustrate the distress caused to parents and the difficulties even of countries that have signed the Hague Convention in returning children.
The Times was allowed to identify Lydia because a judge took the unusual step of asking for media help to find her. Mrs Justice Macur ruled that The Times had ?a legitimate public interest? in reporting this week?s judgment, and the story stripped of its human elements would ?detract rather than focus on its ultimate purpose?.
In addition The Times argued that the high-profile nature of the case, including a lengthy debate in the House of Commons on Lydia?s abduction, meant that there was already considerable information in the public domain.
It was ?simply unrealistic? to ignore this given that these reports were available online, the judge said.