ordered to send son to France
By Stewart Payne
(Filed: 04/11/2004)
A British mother has been ordered to return her five-year-old son to his father in France after breaching European custody laws.
Vicky Donaldson, 38, who lives in Southampton, said she had kept her son, Tommy, in Britain after his school holiday visit because a temporary French custody order had lapsed.
But the High Court of Justice Family Division has ruled that in keeping him, Mrs Donaldson broke the Hague Convention. A French court will rule on custody next year.
Mrs Donaldson, who has three children from an earlier relationship, said yesterday: "I don't believe that the courts in this country would ever separate a mother and child in a custody battle like this. But because we had lived in France for more than a year, European law decreed by Brussels says that French custody law is controlling us."
The Donaldsons moved to France in February 2002 but their marriage broke down in July last year while on holiday in England. Mrs Donaldson stayed behind with her children but her husband, Alistair, 41, obtained a residency order for Tommy when the boy stayed at his home in the Vendee in August last year.
Mr Donaldson said: "The judge in France decided I had temporary custody of my son. A final decision has not been made. Vicky is not the one suffering. She abducted our son. She wanted to live in France but then decided she didn't like it.
"My son was living in France. I took him back there to a home he was used to living in and put him back in a school he was used to. She broke a French custody order. It has now been upheld in this country and quite rightly so."