Appellant applied to an English court for the return of his son Thomas under the Child Abduction and Custody Act, 1985 (ch. 60), which gave statutory force to provisions of the Hague Convention on Child Abduction. The lower court refused the application on the ground that removal of Thomas to Australia without his mother would create a grave risk of serious psychological harm to the child. On appeal, the Court of Appeal unanimously held that the mother’s removal of Thomas from Australia was wrongful under the Hague Convention as a violation of the father’s rights of custody; that the exception in the Convention permitting courts to decline to order return of children when return would create a grave risk of harm to the child does not apply when this risk would occur only if the mother refused to accompany the child back to Australia; and that an order of the court for return of the child to Australia would issue on condition that the father fulfill his offer to give undertakings to the English court and the Australian Family Court regarding provision for Thomas and his mother in Australia.
