Z v Z

Katy Chokowry (instructed by Thomas Dunton Solicitors) for the Applicant Jacqueline Renton and Mani Singh Basi (instructed by Dawson Cornwell) for the Respondent Hearing dates: 22-23 June 2023 ____________________

"Evidence cannot be evaluated and assessed in separate compartments. A judge in these difficult cases must have regard to the relevance of each piece of evidence to other evidence and to exercise an overview of the totality of the evidence in order to come to the conclusion whether the case put forward by the local authority has been made out to the appropriate standard of proof."

ii) F started to change his mind as the treatment progressed, and the timeline appeared to lengthen. He did not make any meaningful objection to the children being in this country during chemotherapy (up to March 2022) and radiotherapy (up to May 2022). He returned to Canada on 17 May 2022, by when the marriage was in some difficulty. On 23 June 2022 (before surgery which took place from August onwards) he definitively communicated to M by text for the first time that he expected the children to be returned to Canada.

iii) F told me that during May 2022 he was told by M's sister in law, and also heard her father in conversation on the telephone to an unknown person, to the effect that M intended to live permanently in England. Whatever he may have heard, I am confident that M had formed no such intention, nor did she communicate any such intention to F. She does not say it anywhere in the written material before me, including in a text message to F of 20 May 2022 replying to F who had mentioned what he overheard; the clear impression of her reply is that it was nonsensical.

"a) it is in breach of rights of custody attributed to a person, an institution or any other body, either jointly or alone, under the law of the State in which the child was habitually resident immediately before the removal or retention; and b) at the time of removal or retention those rights were actually exercised, either jointly or alone, or would have been so exercised but for the removal or retention �.."