Child abduction by ex husband

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Hello
Asking for any advice from anyone experienced in this issue please. Friend and her husband recently separated and husband has taken their oldest son to live with him, without the permission of the mother, and is refusing to allow contact between the mother and son (son is 10 years old) to hurt the mother (who has alleged she is a victim of non physical DV by him). Mother has not seen or had contact with son since the split due to ex not allowing it (making excuses why the child can't/doesn't want to see her, deleting her from child phone etc). Upon reading about it, it seems this is perfectly legal, and the mother has no rights to take him back. Going to court will take nearly 2 years and there is no guarantee that she will get access as the court ask the child's wishes. The child is happy with the father and safe, but that a parent can legally just take and effectively abduct their child seems outrageous. If he takes the child out of the UK that's a different matter and is illegal, but it is okay to do it if he stays in this country. Does anyone have experience of similar please? Thank you

If there is no court order then either parent with parental responsibility can technically retain the child. The way to resolve this is to seek a court order.

To finish proceedings from issue to conclusion can take a long time BUT the court won't ignore the situation in the meantime. She needs to issue proceedings for a child arrangements order as soon as possible so the status quo isn't the child not seeing her. A court will not prohibit a safe parent from having access to their child. There will be a first hearing and there will be interim orders which can allow for contact or shared care.

She needs to act quickly.

Many thanks for this.
So far she's had conflicting advice from 3 different solicitors.

Why would it take 2 years to go through court? She needs to complete the paperwork for a first hearing, without any kind of court order either parent can have the child living with them (in fact living with each parent 50% of the time is now encouraged) how long has the child been living with the father? Courts will look at the status quo and if they have no concerns then its most likely they would suggest a 50/50 split of time between parents.

Can she not just go and pick him up from school early?

What contact did son and dad have before this? Did mum put any barriers in? Is he being vindictivally retaliative?

How old is son?

Court hearings in family court have to be done in 26 weeks. Some areas are trialling new systems that are halving that.

Make a court application.

I would also just go and get him from school (as long as the dad hasn’t changed schools and not said what the new one is). Or at least go and ask to speak to him and check that’s he’s happy and healthy and actually wants to be at Dad’s. If he said he wanted to be with me then I’d take him home.

You can get an emergency court application in this situation, I’ve checked personally. Usually in less than a week. This is to have temporary contact agreed. It’s not for the full divorce etc which could take years.

you can kick it off on a Monday and hopefully see your kid by the Friday

This is my understanding too. Ask the mother to put in an emergency court order. She should mention the risk of the dad trying to alienate the child from the mother as well as the DV. It should not take 2 years for her to see her child.

Forget solicitors and go DIY. Put in application for child arrangements order and tick the box to say it's urgent/emergency. Slightly different circumstances, but when I had to do that I was sat in front of a judge in 15 minutes and had a temporary order in 30 minutes. Whole case got resolved in about 3 or 4 months.

Maybe have a solicitor to look over your forms further down the road. Make it clear that you're self representing and a decent solicitor will help you out for an hour or two charge.

Hello, I went through this with my son, he was 9 at the time…I managed to get him home in 13 weeks after going through emergency court after starting proceedings myself but my son did have some medical issues which were being neglected which I really pushed on to get the court dates asap. It ended in a recovery order being served on him to ensure my son came home. I also got a child arrangement order and residency order so that he couldn’t take him from me or out of school until he’s 16 once he came home. I really sympathise with your friend though, it was honestly the worst time of my life and we’re still dealing with the trauma of it all now x

This is an URGENT application for a child arrangements order. The form is here and all of these proceedings can be done without a lawyer: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a772f9ab418ab055592e93/C100_0424.pdf The Court will order a social welfare report in which all circumstances are taken into consideration. See also: https://www.rightsofwomen.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/children-and-the-law-a-guide-to-cafcass-and-section-7-reports.pdf