Urgent Application for a Prohibited Steps Order

BBS Law represented a father who has sole care of the parties’ two-year-old son. The mother had returned to Taiwan, her home country and did not have consistent contact with the child. Given the father was in possession of the child’s British and Taiwanese passports, the risk of abduction was low. 

The mother informed the father that she will be visiting the UK and wished to see the child. The nature of the correspondence from the mother was threatening, including an allegation that the father “stole” the child. 

Upon discovering that the mother was, in theory, able to obtain a replacement Taiwanese passport for the child without the father’s knowledge or consent, and given the non-Hauge status of Taiwan, BBS Law made an urgent application for a prohibited steps order, prohibiting the mother from removing the child from the father’s care and from the jurisdiction. 

This was granted by the court on paper, and subsequently upheld at the return hearing. This also gave the father comfort in knowing that the child’s nursery would not permit the mother to collect the child from nursery, given the prohibited steps order in place.