European court to decide on fathers’ custody rights

THE Supreme Court has asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to decide an issue concerning the custody rights of unmarried fathers in relation to matters of child removal or abduction.

The issue arose in an appeal by a man against the High Court’s rejection of his challenge to his former partner’s removal, a year ago, of their three children to England to live.

The couple had a 10-year relationship and the mother went to England last July with the children, all aged under 10, just weeks after she terminated the relationship.