Unacceptable delay in abduction case

In re M (child abduction: delay) CA TLR 28 August

In cases involving allegations of child abduction, the court of trial has to complete the process within six weeks and once the judgment has been sent to counsel in draft, there should only be a brief period in which to draft the consequential order. In the present case, the originating summons had been issued on 4 April 2007. The judge heard the case on 21 May, but reasonably elected to put his conclusions in writing, which were emailed to counsel on 25 May. It was accordingly quite unacceptable that the sealed order giving expression to that judgment was not dated until 21 June. To waste a whole month in the timescale of a Brussels II case was completely unacceptable. Counsel needed to understand that once judgment was with them in draft, there should be only be a brief period in which to draft the consequential order.