The High Court (Family Division) heard a father's application under its inherent jurisdiction for the summary return of three children from Jersey, a non-convention state, and set out the principles it applied.
Key facts
- Who: Parents in a dispute over the return of children from Jersey to England, and the authorities involved in their care.
- From: 29 May 2026 (judgment date)
- Source: S, L and K (Children: Habitual Residence, non-convention states: Jersey; summary return), Re [2026] EWHC 1296 (Fam)
In Re S, L and K [2026] EWHC 1296 (Fam), handed down on 29 May 2026, Miss Nageena Khalique KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, dealt with a father's application, issued on 14 October 2025, for the summary return of three children from Jersey to England. The hearing took place on 30 April and 1 May 2026. The judgment was delivered in private, and a transparency order requires the anonymity of the children and their family to be strictly preserved.
Background
Before August 2025 the children were living in England, sharing their time between their parents in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. In August 2025 the mother took them to Jersey and told the father they would not be coming back. The father says he did not consent.
The mother opposed the application. She said the children were habitually resident in Jersey by the time proceedings were issued, and she raised allegations of domestic abuse.
On 24 March 2026 the Jersey Family Court made an Emergency Protection Order on grounds of neglect, and the children were placed in foster care. The mother is appealing that decision. Jersey Children's Services say England and Wales is the children's home jurisdiction and support a planned return. The children's Guardian supported the father's application.
The questions
The court had to decide four questions:
- whether it had jurisdiction;
- where the children were habitually resident on 14 October 2025;
- whether a summary return was appropriate;
- whether there were reasonable grounds to believe the threshold criteria in section 31 of the Children Act 1989 were met, and whether a direction under section 37 should be made.
The judgment does not decide long-term welfare arrangements.
The court's approach
The application was brought under the inherent jurisdiction, not the 1980 Hague Convention. The judge declined to make a declaration under the 1996 Hague Convention, because jurisdiction was clearly established under domestic law by reference to habitual residence and the inherent jurisdiction.
The judge reviewed Re J [2005] UKHL 40, Re NY [2019] UKSC 49 and the Court of Appeal's decision in Re O [2025] EWCA 660. As the judgment records, Re O confirms that a summary return application to a non-Hague Convention country under the inherent jurisdiction is decided by what is in the child's best interests, through a "swift, realistic and unsentimental assessment". It also confirms that there is no warrant to apply the 1980 Convention principles, directly or by analogy, to such an application.
What this means for parents in cross-border children cases
The judgment sets out how the court approached a summary return request involving a non-convention state, where the question is decided on the children's best interests rather than by applying the 1980 Convention.
Sources
- S, L and K (Children: Habitual Residence, non-convention states: Jersey; summary return), Re [2026] EWHC 1296 (Fam), High Court (Family Division), 29 May 2026