Child abduction

Case no. BS-61751/2025

Order made on 8 May 2026 

A
vs.
B

A and B are the parents of C who was born on 2 June 2019 in Denmark. On 16 November 2019, A and B married in the USA, and in 2021, A and C moved to the USA where they lived with B until June 2025. 

In early June 2025, the family visited Denmark. On 9 June 2025, A moved into a women’s shelter with C and cut off all contact with B, who travelled back to the USA alone. On 16 June 2025, B requested that C be returned under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. 

On 1 October 2025, the High Court ordered the return of C to the USA. This order was enforced by an order made by the Family Court on 10 October 2025. The next day, B travelled back to the USA with C.

The case before the Supreme Court concerned, among other things, whether the High Court should have refused to return C to his father in the USA.

The Supreme Court stated that, according to sections 10 and 11 of the Danish Child Abduction Act, the clear general rule is that the unlawfully abducted child must be returned to the country in which the child resided immediately prior to being abducted, which is based on the best interests of the child, and that section 11 of the Act, which provides for the refusal of return and which is, thus, an exception, has a narrow scope.  

Furthermore, the Supreme Court stated that the key factor in assessing whether return can be refused is the child’s circumstances after being returned, which must be based on an assessment of whether there is a serious risk that the return would be detrimental to the child. The assessment of whether such a risk can be considered to exist must be made based on objective circumstances, and it is the party who opposes the child’s return who must prove that the exception applies.

The Supreme Court ruled that A – who had relied in particular on statements by the shelter where she had stayed with C – had not established that B had exposed her and C to psychological abuse. Nor had A demonstrated that C’s separation from her as a result of being returned to his father in the USA posed a serious risk that the return would be detrimental to C.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court ruled that the conditions under section 11 of the Child Abduction Act for refusing to return C to the USA had not been met when the High Court made its decision.

The High Court had reached the same conclusion.