CAO & Daughter refusing to return

[UnderAStone]

There is a CAO in place but my 14 year-old Daughter is refusing to return to her Father. He is threatening her with the Police if she doesn't, saying they would come and remove her. Unfortunately, he is in another City and her new School, which she hates, is there. What would happen if she didn't return? I have PR and a "live with" Order but he is now their Primary Carer.

It's a civil not a criminal matter breaking a CAO. The police would not come and remove her. I only have experience of breaking a CAO with a younger child, but I image the opinion of a 14 year old young woman would be taken into consideration.

Your situation is complicated by the school location. Does the CAO state her father is the primary carer or is this a more recent development?

If you go back to court for a variation its your daughters choice that will be taken into account

The police won't get involved. He will have to go to court if he wants to force her to return. However, as she is 14, it is unlikely the courts would force her to return against her will.

Family lawyer here. The correct thing to do unless there is an urgent welfare issue is to return her/them (your post suggests there is also at least one younger child?), then apply to court to vary the existing order. To say it is a civil matter not a criminal matter is misleading; you can be sent to prison for breaching it. Judge/magistrates would be unimpressed with you if you just keep her/them then he brings enforcement action. You need to do it the right way around and think long term.

You also can't change your daughters school without ex's agreement or a Court Order so you need to apply for a specific issue order at the same time if you want to do that

@Arcadia

Family lawyer here. The correct thing to do unless there is an urgent welfare issue is to return her/them (your post suggests there is also at least one younger child?), then apply to court to vary the existing order. To say it is a civil matter not a criminal matter is misleading; you can be sent to prison for breaching it. Judge/magistrates would be unimpressed with you if you just keep her/them then he brings enforcement action. You need to do it the right way around and think long term.

That's interesting.

OP, I'm sorry to have misled you.

When I breached the CAO (my son was scared to go to his father's) I called my solicitor to ask for advice. She said that if I felt I had grounds for breaking the CAO then it would be OK, but to apply for a variation ASAP (to show that I was keen to work things out in the correct way). She told me that there was no consequence to the CAO being broken unless there was a penal notice attached and that we needed to go back to court to get that.

Anyway, there was no way I was sending my son to his Dad's that day.

Does the CAO also say the child lives with her father, and that she should attend this new school? How did he come to be the primary carer?

We went through private proceedings.

She doesn't feel she was listened to and that her views weren't accurately represented.

@UnderAStone was a section 7 report done last time? Where a Cafcass officer or social worker speaks to the child? If not take it back to court and ask for a report to be done this time, a lot of weight should be attached to a 14 year olds views.

Whilst he would need a court order rather than the police to force a return, I agree with Arcadia that the correct approach is to return her and apply to vary the order. That puts you in a better position than having to defend his application to enforce the existing order.

How come he is their Primary Carer but you have a lives with parent status conferred via the CAO?

As an aside, if this is the way he speaks to his daughter and he issues her with threats I can see entirely why she wouldn’t want to return
At 14 she has quite some say in the matter too.