Prohibited Steps Order advice - non-Hague convention country

[Nearlyalldone]

cross post from the ‘legal’ forum

My ex is from a non-Hague convention country and has been telling the children that he wishes to take them there for a holiday. There is a genuine risk that my ex and/or his family would not allow the children to return if he were to take them there. The children have never been to his home country before and he’s never taken them abroad on holiday by himself before.

Both children are under 10 and I have a ‘lives with’ child arrangements order which means that he needs my permission to take them abroad. I’ve previously made it very clear to my ex in writing that he does not have my permission to take the children to his home country. However, the children are increasingly talking about going on holiday to the country and it appears that he’s talking to them as if it’s a certainty that he’ll be taking them. Via video chats, his family in the home country have apparently also leading the children to believe that they’ll be having a holiday there soon.

I’m thinking of potentially applying for a Prohibited Steps Order to legally prevent my ex from taking the children to his home country. Does anyone have experience in this area? I’d be very grateful for your advice.

Thanks

Doesn't he only need your permission if he intends to take them longer than a certain period of time? Off the top of my head it's 10 days? If he intended to essentially kidnap them I feel like he could easily say it's only for a week and do it anyway.

There’s lots of helpful information on the Reunite website. Do you have their passports? I understand you can have a flag put on them at the Passport Office incase he applied for duplicates.

Are they eligible for passports from his country?

Thanks everyone.

My ex probably wouldn’t sneak them out of the country outright, but I suspect that he might try to take me to court for a ‘specific issues order’ in order to take the children to his home country. I hold the children's British passports, however, I think that they might also be eligible for passports from his home country.

I worry about his family’s influence, he might genuinely just plan to take the children for a holiday but his family are very upset about our marriage breakdown and the country has a patriarchal set-up where children stay with the father/fathers family in the event of a split. He has also demonised me to his family. It’s possible that his family might remove the children from his care for what they think is ‘his own good’ during the visit.

I was thinking that I could preempt his potential specific issues court order with my own prohibited steps order application to permanently block him from taking the children to his home country (or to any other non-Hague convention country). Does this sound like a good idea? I wanted to sound this out here before approaching a solicitor.

Thanks.