Jay Banerji and Joseph Landman, instructed by Kevin Skinner of Goodman Ray, successfully represented the respondent mother in a strike out of an application under the 1980 Hague Convention for the summary return of a child to South Africa in TD v MT (Rights of Custody after Lawful Removal [2026] EWHC (952) (Fam).
Mr Justice MacDonald acceded to the request to case-manage the issue of ‘rights of custody’ as a preliminary issue. After determining that there was no wrongful retention, and that the father did not have rights of custody, the Court dismissed the father’s application under the Hague Convention.
The case engaged a complex timeline of ongoing appellate proceedings in South Africa. The father had been contesting a South African court’s decision which permitted the mother to remove the child to the jurisdiction of England and Wales. The mother and the child left South Africa after the dismissal of the first application for permission to appeal, but before the father had launched a second application for permission to appeal with the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa.
Mr Justice MacDonald held that “an act of retention crystallises at the point where the continued absence of the child from the requesting State becomes legally impermissible.” Mr Justice MacDonald also held that the father did not have rights of custody, as the relocation order suspended his right to ‘veto’ the removal of the child from South Africa.
The striking out of an application under the Hague Convention prior to final hearing is exceptionally rare.