R (Children: Setting aside Hague return order) (No. 2), Re

The Lady Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, CJ handed down the judgment of the Court :

1. This short judgment records the order that we now make to dispose of this appeal, and the reasons for it.

2. On 12 November 2025, we handed down our main judgment: [2025] EWCA 1426 . We stayed an order that required two children, aged 13 and 11, to be returned to the United States because we considered that suitable protective measures for their reception were not yet in place. We therefore adjourned the children’s appeal to allow the Court of Common Pleas in Delaware County, Pennsylvania to make further orders if it wished to do so, following which this court would hear further submissions and make final orders disposing of all aspects of the appeal.

3. In fact, the matter was not restored to the Court of Common Pleas. Instead the father has applied, after much thought, to withdraw his Hague Convention summons, seeking the children’s summary return. His application is accompanied by a powerful and moving statement, signed on 13 January 2026, in which he grieves for his relationship with his sons, whom he has not seen since June 2021, and who have in his view been irretrievably alienated from him by what he describes as their mother’s criminal actions. He states that he has lost faith in the legal process being able to change that position and he sees no end in sight. He loves the boys unconditionally but he is unable to fight on.

4. The father’s decision is greatly to be respected, and we again record that the allegations made against him have not been substantiated by any independent body and have been considered and rejected by both the Court of Common Pleas and by the First-tier Tribunal. We grant his application to withdraw his Hague Convention summons, issued as long ago as 17 March 2023. For their part, the children’s representatives are sensibly content to withdraw their appeal, and we shall set aside the return order, made on 15 November 2024 and supplemented by the order of 21 July 2025. We do so under CPR PD52A 6.4 by consent and without determining the merits of the appeal, being satisfied that there are good and sufficient reasons for so doing. We would not have considered it appropriate to allow the children’s appeal because, as we repeat, the original decision, made in 2024, that they should be returned to the United States was in our view an entirely proper one in principle. ___________________