Transfer of Children to Father

F v M (2025) EWFC 208

Family Tree

The father (“F”).

The mother (“M”)

Boy aged 13 (“A”)

Girl aged 12 (“B”)

Boy aged 10 (“C”)

Boy aged 8 (“D”)

F and M separated in 2018, and Children Act proceedings began shortly thereafter. Between 2018 and March 2020 the children lived with M and had reasonably regular contact with F until the Covid pandemic in early 2020, when contact with F became intermittent.

In May 2022, a Child Arrangements Order (CAO) was made for the children to remain living with M and to have a regular pattern of contact with F. That did not happen. In December 2023 there was a 2-day fact-finding hearing. The judgement in February 2024 dealt with the enforcement of the previous order.

F maintained that M had breached the existing CAO on numerous occasions. M’s position was that the children should not spend time with F, or only a very limited time, and that she had reasonable excuses to breach the order.

The matter came before Recorder Coles at the 2-day FFH in February 2024, and the Recorder found that M had breached the order with no reasonable excuse. She imposed 40 hours of unpaid work on M but suspended that provision for a 12-month period. She also made a CAO with a detailed schedule of contact building up to shared care. It was in March 2024 that the case returned to court, this time before Mrs Justice Lieven, when M applied to vary the order of Recorder Coles and F applied (yet again) for enforcement.

Despite Mrs Justice Lieven making a very detailed CAO, M breached it fairly quickly. The breach is one which many of you may be familiar with, namely refusing to take the children to school on a Friday when it was F’s turn to collect the children from school in order to have them for the weekend. This breach was very serious, as, in December 2024, the children were expelled from their then schools. To exacerbate matters, M found another school without any discussion with F.

The case is unusual, as M did not appear to learn from the history of the protracted litigation and the numerous criticisms which were made of her. This led to Mrs Justice Lieven ordering Leicester City Council to undertake a Section 37 Children Act investigation (to assess whether to apply for a care or a supervision order) and a psychological assessment of F, M and the children by Dr Mark Hardiman. Unusually, the judge attached penal notices to the M on her earlier orders on the basis that she had persistently and deliberately breached them.

A children’s guardian interviewed the children at school, and in March 2025 CAFCASS filed a Section 16A Risk Assessment, recommending an urgent hearing and a change of residence to F.

In March 2024 Mrs Justice Lieven ordered the children to move to live with their F with two contact sessions per week with M, one on Teams and one face-to-face, with all contact professionally supervised. In June 2025 there was a 2-day final hearing at which M sought the return of the children to her, and F sought for the children to remain with him, aligned with the recommendations of the guardian.

Child “A” wanted to live with F and wanted to see M on alternate weekends. Child B’s views were similar to those of “A.” She wanted to continue to live with F and to have contact with M for 4 hours at the weekend.

Child C originally said he wanted to live with M but later seemed ambivalent, stating that it was fine living at F’s house. Child D expressed similar views but spoke about spending equal time between the parents.

The report from Dr Hardiman was extremely important in this case, as was his oral evidence. He was not confident about M’s ability to change, regarded her as controlling the children and commented on the very different parenting styles of M and F. He felt that F was more likely to give the children choices and to guide them rather than controlling them. He recommended that M engage in therapy and felt it would be very difficult for her to support contact or any meaningful relationship with F unless she changed considerably. Notably, M was herself a child psychologist, and the comments in evidence must have struck a nerve, not least the professional view that she was seeking to influence what the children said to the professionals involved in the case.

It would be fair to say that the case is extreme with escalating and complete criticism of M by the professionals. It would be wrong to assume that a transfer of residence is a likely outcome without compelling professional evidence to the effect that one parent has a malign effect on children, a disregard for court orders and is unable to promote a meaningful relationship with the other parent. It was noted that the M (herself, a child psychologist) was resistant to undertaking therapy, despite Dr Hardiman’s recommendation in his report and in oral evidence.

By contrast, it was noted that F supported the children having a relationship with M and had volunteered to extend time for indirect contact. He was described as “child-focused” in his approach.

Child B had written directly to the judge, something which is now more common in Children Act proceedings, saying:

I would like to continue to live with my dad and have supervised visits with my mum for 2–4 hours. I feel that I need to gradually build up the time with my mum. I would like for perhaps next year for us to maybe spend the full day there and, as the years go by, the weekend contacts. I feel that the videos sometimes have been extended past the time limit. When I carry on going to contact my mum, I would like it to carry on being supervised. Thank you. “B.”

I mention above that this had been litigation which began with a CAO in May 2022 and continued until the final hearing in June 2025. For this reason, the Guardian recommended a Section 91(14) order for a period of three years.

This is an order which prevents parents from litigating further without the permission of the court. The intention is to release the children from the stress of litigation, and the order was granted in the unusual circumstances of this case. The children were to remain living with F despite the two younger children having said they would rather live with M. Their contact with M would continue to be supervised until the local authority, in conjunction with F, considered supervision to be no longer necessary.

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