Court grants boy’s application preventing his parents from removing him to Pakistan
In an unusual case the High Court has granted an application by a boy, who is nearly 15-years-old, for a prohibited steps order preventing his parents from removing him from England to Pakistan.
The background to the case is also somewhat unusual in that, significantly, the boy spent most of his childhood in Pakistan (where he was born), being cared for by relatives, rather than his parents.
In 2024 the parents both acquired British Citizenship, and decided that the boy should move to live with them in England.
But the boy’s relationship with his parents, particularly his father, soon began to break down. The boy was “perceived as difficult, badly behaved, causing trouble and an embarrassment for the family”. Both parents and the boy described verbal clashes, shouting and arguments between the boy and his father, around such routine matters as the boy’s use of his phone, his bedtimes, his commitment to his school work and his presentation at home.
However, the judge hearing the case described the boy’s behaviour as “no more than normal adolescent behaviour” – that of a young person seeking some independence, but running up against a father who was a “harsh disciplinarian”.
It was accepted by all that there had been arguments between the boy and his father, and that these had involved shouting and verbal abuse. However, the boy’s claims that he was hit, slapped, beaten and threatened with violence by his father were denied by both his parents.
As a way to try to bring the boy “into line” the father threatened to return him to Pakistan.
Eventually the difficulties in the household and his isolation within his family led the boy to seek support from child protection professionals in England. He first contacted children’s services by email, in May 2025.
The local authority began investigating the matter. In the course of their investigations the father told them that he would not send the boy back to Pakistan unless he wanted to go.
Notwithstanding this, the boy travelled with his father to Pakistan on 2nd July 2025. The parents claimed that that he had asked to go there with his father.
But on the 4th of July the boy contacted ChildLine from Pakistan. He said that he had been taken by his father to Pakistan against his will, that his father had hidden his passport, and that his father had threatened to kill him if he told anyone where he was.
The boy contacted a solicitor in England, who applied to the High Court for an order facilitating his return to this country. On the 3rd of September 2025 the High Court ordered his return, and in compliance with that order the boy returned to England on 9th September, travelling on his own. His father stayed in Pakistan, where he remains.
The boy sought a prohibited steps order preventing his parents from removing him from England to Pakistan. As to where he would live in England, there were two options: either with a family member, with local authority support, or in foster care, hopefully short-term only.
Hearing the application, Deirdre Fottrell KC found that the boy had experienced significant emotional harm arising from the abuse and conflict which he experienced when he was living with his father. She said that that harm was present when he was living in England, but it seems to her the risk of further harm increased when he went to Pakistan, because he was under the exclusive control of his father, without any outside oversight.
In the circumstances, she accepted that the welfare interests of the boy required that the Court make an order prohibiting his parents from removing him from England to live in Pakistan.
You can read the full judgment in the case here.
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