Derby City Council v The Mother & Ors

This judgment concerns a fact-finding hearing in care proceedings concerning three children: X, a girl aged 9; and Y and Z, boys aged 8. The case commenced as private law proceedings between the parents, but the local authority then started care proceedings as set out in the chronology below.

Both parents are Egyptian by origin. The father was born in 1979 and the mother was born in 1983, both of them in Egypt. The father had a relationship with a British woman that resulted in two children who are now adults. I know no more about that relationship than that. In November 2007 the father married a British woman who I will refer to as B, and came to the United Kingdom. In around 2011 the father gained British citizenship. In November 2013 the father and B separated. The mother and father met when the father was on holiday in Egypt in 2014. They married in December 2014 in an Islamic ceremony in Egypt. In January 2015 the father returned to the UK and the mother remained in Egypt. Over the next few years the father lived in the UK and worked here and went back to Egypt approximately every three or four months to spend time with the mother.

X was born in Egypt on 28 November 2015. The mother has a number of brothers, but one is called C and he is married to a British woman called D, and they live in the United Kingdom. D gave a statement in these proceedings, and oral evidence, and I will refer to her evidence later. However, in 2016 D in her evidence says she was concerned about the mother and the control the father exercised over the mother whilst he was in the UK and the mother was still in Egypt. The mother says that in September 2017, when she was pregnant, the father forced her to have sex multiple times over a couple of days, including anal sex. This was shortly before she gave birth. On 20 September 2017 the twins, Y and Z, were born. I understand that the mother had been pregnant with triplets and one triplet did not survive.

At a date before July 2018 the father divorced B. That is relevant because it appears that when the father first applied for a spousal visa for the mother to go to the United Kingdom it was rejected because he was still married to B.

In July 2018 the mother and the children moved to the United Kingdom. The mother's evidence is that she was brought to the United Kingdom in the belief that it was only for a holiday. The mother had been working in Luxor for the police, and she got leave of absence from the police but for a period of, I believe, one or two years. The mother said she believed she and the children would be returning to Egypt to live. However, when she got to the United Kingdom, according to the mother, the father insisted she and the children remained in the UK. The mother said she had wanted to return to Egypt to her job. The father says it was agreed that the mother and children would remain in the UK.

There was an incident on, I think, 30 August 2018, where D went to Derby to see the parents, and her evidence is that the father would not leave her alone with the mother and that he was quick to ensure she left.

The mother came to the United Kingdom on a spousal visa.

There were then a number of incidents which the mother now refers to in relation to saying there was domestic abuse. I am not going to record all of those. However, the mother says that in 2019 the father had tried to force her to wear an abaya, a black cloak, and she says that her clothing, in particular seeking to wear Western clothing, was the cause of many arguments.

I will refer later to the evidence as to the father's recording of the mother, but there is a recording dated 11 March 2021 where the mother sent to father a message saying:

"God forbid I've got nothing to do with you. I swear these kids are wearing me out, and today I shouted at Z a lot. I can't even stand upright. He pushed me to hit him and he's still being stubborn."

On 1 May 2021 the mother spoke to a teacher at the English language college she was attending, and the college subsequently made a referral to the local authority. I will read what is set out in that referral. The ESOL teacher, took the referral on 1 May 2021:

"The mother has made me aware of some safeguarding-related issues while explaining her absence from online lessons. Her husband confiscated her mobile phone, therefore she could not take part in the lessons for three weeks and couldn't have any contact with her extended family. She told me that during their arguments her husband hit her on numerous occasions and her children witnessed the abuse. He has threatened to send her back to Egypt and he and the children will remain in England. [The mother] started attending face-to-face lessons again from 20 April 2021. She asked me not to discuss her problem with anybody unless he hits her again. She acknowledged that she needs help but she is so scared about her husband's reaction if he

finds out she is talking to people about the situation."

There was then a referral to the local authority, and a lady called E from the school spoke to the mother about the referral. There was apparently no interpreter at that discussion. The mother told E all was well in the house and she and the children were fine. She said she did not want social care involved and she says she begged E not to tell the father.

Right at the end of 2021, the mother and the children went to Egypt on a holiday. This is an important date in the chronology because from when the mother returned to the United Kingdom in February 2022, it seems clear from the evidence that there was a serious downturn in the relationship. The mother says that when she returned from Egypt, she became aware through a friend, or she believed through a friend, that the father had started a relationship with another woman, who I will refer to as F. From March 2022 onwards, there are a large number of references in the school notes (to which I will refer as CPOMS, that being the noting facility that schools use) about the behaviour of the children at school (technically at nursery), in particular the behaviour of the two boys. There are frequent references from 3 March onward to the boys being highly dysregulated, hitting other children, throwing things and their behaviour being very bad.

On 1 April 2022, Z said at nursery, "Mummy hits me, daddy hits mummy." Y was present and said, "No, not." When the mother was asked about this a few days later she said, "No, he is good husband," and when asked if she hit Z, she said, "No." There were those concerns when the children's behaviour continued through April 2022 and on 29 April Y said he was feeling sad and:

"Mummy is angry. She kick me. She want to go to Egypt. No kisses and cuddles. Daddy bleeding

in mouth. Water in his bed. Wet. Daddy poorly."

There was a section 47 enquiry, but concerns were not substantiated.

Then from May there is record of X being upset at school, saying she had a tummy ache and a headache and that there had been lots of shouting at home from her brothers. Both parents denied what she said.

Matters took an even worse turn in July 2022. At or around July 2022 the mother says she was told that the father had entered into an Islamic marriage with F. The father denies this. I think he says they are still not married, but he certainly says they were not married in July 2022. It is clear that the mother's suspicions about the relationship with F was a cause, unsurprisingly, of a huge number of arguments and anger in the home. The mother said that in July 2022 she called the father to ask him about the second marriage; he became very angry and, when he came home, she said:

"He lunged at me in front of the children. I covered X with my body as she was terrified. He

kicked a hole in the door and was shouting with rage."

Mother says the father convinced her not to leave the relationship.

The mother then (and this is not disputed) reached out to her brother, C, and her sister-in-law, D, and said that the father was abusing her and planning to take a second wife. There was a text message from the father to C on that day, 20 July, at 1.37 am, which says:

"Ring [the mother] and tell her to take a taxi and come to you because she packed her suitcase and walked out of the house because a Kurdish lady told her, 'Your husband is going to marry another woman,' and you know [the mother] gives her ears to everyone and believes everything."

There is evidence (and I will come back to this) that on 22 July the father assaulted the mother. The mother says:

"He slapped me hard repeatedly in the face, making my face reddened and my nose bleed. The children witnessed the attack. He put his hand into a fist and hit me on the top of my head. I started to have pain behind my eyes and was taken to the hospital. I cannot recall much of what

happened there."

The mother says that when she went to hospital, the father would not allow her to speak privately to the doctor. I will come to the father's report of this event when I deal with this evidence, but in summary he says he never hit the mother.

On that same day, the father again texted C at 3.35 am and said:

"Don't worry, nothing happened. She's at the hospital and going to stay to do some blood tests

and then she's going home."

C responded:

"So last time I heard from you, you said she packed her bags after an argument. Now you're

telling me she's in hospital. What have you done to her?"

D was sufficiently concerned about this course of events that she independently made a referral to a women's organisation called the Elm Foundation.

In terms of supporting evidence, when the children were spoken to at school the following day, Y said, "Mummy stayed at doctor's, had 'paint' on arm and leg." Z said, "Blood. Really big cut. She fell down and daddy brought us to school." As far as X was concerned, the CPOMS notes say:

"I talked with X. Initially said she was okay, but as she spoke she would not look at me and she was looking at up at the ceiling. I said it was okay and she burst into tears. She said that she was so scared and she didn't want to go home with daddy; mummy had been hurt but the hospital wouldn't let her stay as it would take a long time. She said mummy was at home in bed now. I asked where mummy was hurt and she said, 'Her knees,' and also pointed to her left eye between the breast and shoulder. She said mummy was very upset and X was very frightened. I did ask how mummy got hurt but she didn't know. I asked if she was with her. She said she was in her room. I asked if there was any shouting. She said, 'No,' but again she wouldn't look at me. X

was clearly upset and worried."

Somebody from the school spoke to mother, who said she thought she was having a stroke as her legs and lips were numb. She said there was no blood and could not explain why the boys have said that. She called the father, who called an ambulance, and she was taken to A&E. Effectively, as I understand it, given that the mother was saying at that point that the father had not assaulted her, the enquiries could not really go any further.

On 20 September 2022 Y said at school:

"My daddy like that, he little bit sad, he's angry, he's angry for mummy. Mummy sad, sad cos

daddy going to break phone."

On the same day Y said something about his bottom, "It hurts, gold pen in there." I note at this point that there have been some concerns about sexual abuse but none of them have been supported by independent evidence, and it seems quite possible, the local authority say, that this was actually something to do with a constipation matter. However, Y went on to say:

"On holiday, I was asleep in bed. Daddy said, 'Come here.' Z crying. Mummy was covering his

face. Z had to go upstairs."

In early October there were two conversations at school where Z said the father was very angry and had kicked the bedroom door with his foot.

By December 2022 there were still concerns about the mental health of both of the boys, given their very dysregulated behaviour.

On 17 April Y was talking about his family to a member of staff at school:

"He said mummy and daddy get very angry with him but he never cries even when daddy hits him with a shibshib [I should say a shibshib is an Egyptian phrase for a slipper]. Y got frustrated that the staff member didn't know what a shibshib was so he took off his shoe and said, 'It's like

a shoe but hurts more.'"

In October 2023 (and this is a point of critical importance) the mother's spousal visa expired. No steps were taken at that stage to renew the spousal visa.

On 12 March 2024, the father signed a deed changing the children's name from G to J. The change of name deeds appear to have both parents' signatures on them, witnessed by a K of [a company]. It now transpires that when K witnessed those signatures the mother had not signed the document, so the witnessing was wrong. When this came to light (I am going to deal with this as a separate point) HHJ Williscroft ordered K to attend before her on 15 August 2025, and her Honour's conclusion is set out in the recital:

"The change of name deeds were prepared on only the father's behalf, and although K signed as a witness to both signatures, it would appear on his own account he did not witness signatures at the time and never met or witnessed the mother's signature."

I make clear at this point that I intend to refer K and his company to the Ombudsman of Immigration Advisors. The company and K appear not to be regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, but I cannot overstate my concern about this event.

So, there is no dispute that the mother did not sign the document in front of K and did not sign it at those offices. What happened was that the father then took the documents to the mother's college where she was taking English lessons and told her to come out of the lesson to sign the documents. He, according to her, told her to sign them quickly and then left. She says she does not know what the documents contained and she had no idea about the name change. The father says that he had discussed the name change with her in advance and that she did understand the document.

On 14 May 2024 Y told the school, "Z was crying in my room because dad says he's going to hit him when he gets back." Z denied this. The staff member asked if that is what happens when he gets into trouble. Z nodded and said, "Yeah, sometimes." He was asked where father hit him and pointed to his cheek and said, "Here." Oddly, as far as I can see, the school did not seem to take that forward.

In July 2024 the mother alleges that the father forced her to have anal sex on around eight occasions. She has given a detailed account of that.

We then come to the next very important part of the chronology. In August the father booked flights for the family to Turkey. Oddly, he gave his address as F's address, but that was not investigated in evidence, so I say no more about that. The sequence of events is that on 16 August the family went to Manchester Airport. The factual position is that the mother got on a flight to Istanbul without a visa for Turkey and, critically, without any ability to return to the United Kingdom because her spousal visa had expired. The mother says she believed they were going on holiday to Turkey and that the father had told her she had to travel alone to Istanbul as the plane was overbooked and the children and him would follow immediately. The father says the mother knew she might not be able to get into Turkey and knew that he had booked a further flight on later the same evening from Istanbul to Alexandria Airport in Egypt. The mother said she did not know that. What happened in practice was that the mother got to Istanbul Airport and could go no further. She then spent two nights sleeping in Istanbul Airport. She did not take the flight on to Alexandria, and in the end she or the father bought a new flight to Alexandria. The father and the children flew direct, as I understand it, to Antalya and proceeded to have a ten-day holiday. I will get to the detail of this when I assess the evidence, but the father accepts he had a plan to trick the mother into going to Turkey and that then she would not be able to get back to the United Kingdom.

When the mother was left in Istanbul Airport, she contacted her brother, L, in Egypt. She says that the father pretended to her that there was a problem with his flight from Manchester, delays, and she continued to expect to be going on in Turkey until it became obvious that that was not possible.

At this stage I am just going to stick to the documented material wherever possible. The father sent a message to the brother, L, saying:

"We were going to Turkey and [the mother] had a problem with her visa. She's going to continue to Alexandria Airport. Our plane, me and the kids, is going to be late and we're going to miss the connection in Istanbul. When we arrive in Istanbul the next day, we're going to change the booking next day, send someone to take [the mother]”.

So, the father at this point appears to have deliberately lied to L. According to the mother, while she was communicating with the father from Istanbul Airport, the father conducted an Islamic divorce on her, pronouncing talaq three times. The father denies that. The mother then tried to book a flight back to the UK but only at that stage realised she could not return because her visa had expired. The mother says she tried calling the father, but he kept turning his phone off, except for one occasion when she heard X crying and saying, "Mummy, mummy, come back."

On 18 August, having spent two nights on the floor of Istanbul Airport, the mother flew to Egypt and then went on to her parents' house in Luxor. At this point D contacted the local authority and the school about the mother being abandoned abroad. It appears that at this stage neither D or C or the mother knew where the children were, and that was their initial primary concern.

On 18 August there was an application made for an HSBC credit card in the mother's name. The father accepts he made that application.

From the point that D made the referral there were a number of actions by the local authority and the school. They are not critical in the main to the findings I need to make.

On 21 August there was reference to a neighbour having contacted the local authority and having referred to domestic abuse, but it is not entirely clear what the provenance of that reference is. However, on the same day the father sent messages to the mother's brother in which he says:

"I swear by God, I swear by God, I swear by God, I will humiliate her and I am not going to leave her after what she did to my kids, and she will never see their faces again after what she did, [L]. My kids, they come and checked them in the home, and you wonder why I kicked her

out. She's not behaving with my kids and has no morals."

The particular relevance of this message is that the father now says he abandoned the mother because he thought the mother might try to force female genital mutilation circumcision on X. I note that in this message there is no reference to that fear. I also note that this reference is clear that the father's intention was that the mother would not see the children again.

There is then a further message to L where the father makes clear that he has now heard that the police are involved and that C has made a complaint.

On 22 August there was a further application for a credit card in the mother's name.

On 24 August the father and the children returned home from Turkey, and it is at this point that father reports he believed X was at risk of FGM from the mother.

The father says he started a sexual relationship with F in September/October 2024, so he accepts the relationship from that point.

On 16 September 2024 Z said at school, "We had to leave mum." Both he and Y said they wanted to talk to their mother. The school member of staff suggested they ask the father, and Z said, "No way, I'm too scared." He said he did not want to talk about it.

On 23 September 2024 the boys told the school they had changed their surname. It appears the father did not tell them before that.

On 1 October 2024, by which time social worker Ms Harris was involved, X said to Ms Harris that she felt happy and sad, that she missed her mum but was happy because her mum used to be mean to her. X referred to her mum making her stand with her hands against the wall for ten minutes, and it was a punishment for laughing. She said mum shouted a lot and was strict with TV time. She said her father did not do these things and just tells them off. She said father does not hurt her. Z said to Ms Harris that he missed his mum, but he said she was not nice, rude sometimes and would shout at people. He also referred to putting arms on the wall and that she had hit him with a slipper. He said nobody else hurt him. There is reference to the children saying that dad is kinder.

On 10 October there is reference to Y saying he was sad and angry at school:

"I wouldn't tell daddy this but I would like to go on holiday to Egypt to see mummy. X was crying

the other night about mummy."

He was asked if he gets sad about this and said, "No, I can't. Daddy doesn't let us."

On 21 October Z said to school:

"I want to speak to mummy but I know daddy will get cross if I do and he will keep hitting me so

I just say I don't."

Y said, "Mummy sent the police on us. It was funny." Z said, "She just wanted to check in on us, Y. Maybe she was scared." Y said, "Don't be silly, Z. Daddy tells us she would do this."

It seems clear beyond doubt that the children were being told things by the father, that were completely inappropriate.

I will not go into the local authority's assessments at that stage because I do not think they help in the facts very much.

In November X drew a picture and said she was confused why mum took a different plane. On the picture it said, "When are you coming back? I really miss you. I love you. Call me, please."

I have to say, happily for the mother, D has proved herself to be a very effective sister-in-law, and on 19 November 2024 the mother was granted indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom, I assume on the basis of transnational marriage abandonment.

On 22 November X said to school:

"Daddy's nicer than mum. I don't miss mum too much. She used to hit us and shout all the time. I don't think mum will ring me on my birthday in a few days. She never did it for the boys."

In December 2024 it appears the mother took some proceedings in Luxor to try to gain access to an apartment, which I believe the father owned or had an interest in.

The next key date is 14 February 2024, where the mother issued a private law application in this court, seeking for the children to live with her. The matter initially came before HHJ Chatterjee, and on 6 March 2024 at (5) in a recital, Judge Chatterjee says:

"And upon the court expressing concern that the applicant mother had not informed the court on 28 February 2025 that she made a referral to the local authority from Egypt in November 2024."

Mr Cleary makes something of this because he suggests that mother was deliberately not telling the court about the referral. I have to say I can see no forensic value in this. As to the mother not telling the court at that stage, it may well have been she did not realise the relevance, but I cannot see it has anything to do with the fact-finding today.

The mother by this stage had made allegations against the father, and on 18 March 2025 the father was arrested and interviewed and gave a no comment interview. Private law proceedings continued, and there was a police investigation ongoing.

On 1 May 2025 the father's former wife, B, provided a statement to the police and she referred in that statement to there having been incidents of a sexual nature, in other words sexual assault, during the relationship.

Some indirect contact started with the children on 20 May 2025. This was clearly quite upsetting for both the mother and the children.

On 29 May 2025 B was interviewed by the police, and there is a long transcript of that interview. In that interview B makes allegation that the father anally raped her on three occasions during the course of their relationship.

On 9 June 2025 the father was arrested in respect of the allegations of sexual assault by both the mother and B. Due to the number and severity of the allegations the police had significant concerns regarding the father having sole care of the children, and bail conditions were applied that he was to have no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 18. I believe it is at that stage the children left the father's care. The children then spent two nights with their aunt, D. D says they were upset and confused about what was going on.

On 10 June the mother moved back to the local area, and on 11 June there was an urgent call to hearing before HHJ Williscroft in which HHJ Williscroft made interim care orders under section 37. It is at that point that these became public law proceedings.

On 16 June X said at the school:

"I wish my mum would shut her goddamn mouth. She is a liar. She is telling people about what my dad has done, which isn't true, and now everyone thinks she's correct. I don't want to see her. I hate her. She's ruined my life. Everyone is on my mum's side, not my dad's."

On 17 June direct contact started between the mother and the children. I am not going to go through all the direct contact, but it is clear that direct contact has been difficult, although certainly the younger children, I think now X as well, enjoy it, but the mother has struggled to place boundaries, which perhaps is unsurprising in the circumstances, and there have been some problems in contact.

On 9 July 2025 the local authority decided to issue care proceedings. A fact-finding hearing was ordered, and I just note that the court has done what it can to expedite that fact-finding hearing. The only other relevant date in the chronology is that there was an incident at contact on 15 August 2025 where the mother became angry with the interpreter and there was a clash between the mother and the interpreter. The mother says she was unhappy with the interpreter, particularly as he is a man. The contact supervisor felt that the mother became inappropriately angry.

I have heard three days of evidence, and I will go through the witnesses in the order they appeared before me.

The mother gave evidence over the course of a day with the benefit of an interpreter. In my assessment, she was a truthful witness. Her evidence was wholly consistent. To the limited degree it could be checked against extrinsic material, it was supported, and it was a coherent narrative. She was a calm and careful witness. The truthfulness of her evidence was supported by the fact that she accepted points against herself and she did not appear to exaggerate. For example, she said the father had only forced her to have sex in 2017 and then in 2024. She accepted she had hit the children on their hands, although not hard, and she accepted she had struggled to know how to control them, although she said she had got much better about that after 2022, when she had had some assistance in terms of learning how to manage behaviour.

She said that the problems had arisen quite early in the relationship when she was living in Egypt and the father had returned to the UK. He was controlling of her finances and what she did, but as she was working in Egypt and had her own income, she remained relatively independent (my words, not hers). In 2017, when she was pregnant with the twins, the father had forced her to have sex both vaginally and anally.

The father wanted the mother to move to the UK in 2018. She thought she was just going for an extended holiday but he then insisted she remained there. She said from then on, he was totally controlling of her money, controlled her phone use, tried to control what she wore and controlled her contact with family and friends. It certainly appears she was highly isolated from her family when she was in the UK. She said the father did not want her to talk to any of her family. He had control over her email account and her bank account and he also had cameras set up in the house so that he could record her and the children (I will return to that point). She said he was physically violent to her throughout the time she was in the UK.

The mother had spoken to the tutor at college in 2021 about the father's plan to send her back to Egypt without the children because the father's physical abuse of her got worse. When the father found out she had spoken to the tutor he had hit her and threatened to send her back to Egypt. She was too scared to get help because she had no money or family support and she was afraid the father could take the children from her, as he had threatened. As I have said, there is some supporting evidence for this from the reference to the college. I can see no reason for the mother to have made this report in May 2021 unless it was true. She had nothing to gain by making the allegation at that point.

The mother accepted that she did at times struggle to cope with the children's behaviour and became angry with them. She accepted that she hit them on the hands and that she would make them stand with their hands against the wall, although she said only for a short period.

It was clear from the mother's evidence that the relationship was a very difficult one, certainly by 2022, and she was highly isolated and at times angry, and sometimes this impacted on her conduct with the children. It is clear from the recordings that the mother can get angry and at times lose control, and she can use angry and highly emotional language. Mr Cleary put to her a number of recordings the father had made, and the mother accepted she got angry but said the father had deliberately wound her up because he knew he was recording her.

When she returned from Egypt in February 2022, it was around that time that she believed father had started a relationship with F. A lady called M had told the mother about the relationship. During this period there was a number of violent arguments. She accepted this happened in front of the children and that it was very frightening for them. This coincides closely with the chronology above of when the children's behaviour at school deteriorated and they reported the parents arguing. She said the father hit her in front of the children. She called her brother, C, in July 2022, when she discovered the father had married F. After she had spoken to C, the father assaulted her and she had to go to hospital. The children saw her injuries and X was screaming.

The mother said she could not report the domestic abuse to the authorities because she was afraid that father would remove her visa and stop her living with the children. She was at this time almost completely under his control. The father held her and the children's passports. She did not know what her visa situation was as the father managed the visa. She said the father sometimes would lose his temper with the children and hit the boys but not X. He would slap them in the face.

The mother said the father started to sexually assault her again from 2022 and forced her to have sex, but it was only in 2024 that he forced her to have anal sex. She said father taunted her about F and that the mother had been circumcised, which made her less sexually attractive to him. The father would call her crazy in front of the children and tell them that she was not a good mother. He would also make X watch her and report back to him as to who mother had spoken to and would then reward X. When she signed the change of name deed for the children, she had no idea what she was signing. She had never agreed to their names being changed.

She was adamant she did not support FGM and she had never had any intention that X should be circumcised; she had never discussed with the father X being circumcised. She had not initially told the social worker that she herself had been the subject of FGM because there was a male interpreter and she was too embarrassed.

C's evidence was of limited value. It was plain he had been extremely suspicious of the father since the time when the mother first married him. This was because of what C said he knew about the father from when he was young in Luxor. C did not see either parent when the mother moved to the UK until 2025. My strong sense, supported by his wife's evidence, was that C did not want to get involved unless forced to do so after the abandonment.

D was, in my view, a wholly truthful witness. She had known the mother since around 2000, when D married C. She said she had discussed FGM with the mother in around 2005/6 because it was much in the news at that time in Egypt. The mother was never supportive in conversation of FGM. D said she had had conversations with other female members of the family and they did not support FGM for their daughters. In her view, it was a practice that was viewed in the mother's family as being backward and old-fashioned. I was convinced by D's evidence in this regard. She said she had an interest in women's issues in Egypt and the Middle East and she was thoughtful and well-informed on the issue. I do not think she was merely saying what her husband's family would have wanted her to say.

The other important aspect of D's evidence was that when the mother had first been abandoned in August 2024, the father had phoned the mother's brothers. He had said she had been talking to other men and has mental health issues. He did not raise at that point the alleged risk of FGM. She had seen the WhatsApp messages herself so she could give first-hand evidence on this. As set out above, D was so worried about the mother in 2022 that she contacted a women's support agency.

N is the father's older sister. Her evidence was that when the mother was in Egypt in 2022 she had raised FGM and suggested she wanted it to be done to X. N was, in my view, a difficult witness. She gave her evidence remotely from Egypt, which of course was not in any sense her fault, with the benefit of an interpreter. However, she was extremely difficult to pin down. She claimed the father had not spoken to her about her evidence and that she had not told him about the alleged conversation about FGM. However, it was not clear to me how she knew FGM was relevant to the case and why she had raised it in her statement.

In the light of a lack of an interpretation certificate and the general confusion of the background to N's written evidence, I asked the father's solicitors to produce a statement. In that statement the solicitor said N's English was so good, when he or she had taken a statement, that the solicitor did not think she needed an interpreter. I have to say, this makes N’s failure to be clear in her evidence to me about why she raised FGM even more suspicious. I accept she did not try to paint mother in a wholly bad light, accepting that, although she hit the children, she did not do so hard. However, I have reached the view that N's evidence was not truthful in respect of the discussions about FGM. It seems likely to me that, whether directly or indirectly, the father had let her know that his case was that the mother was intending to carry out FGM. What role the father had in N's evidence is not clear to me. However, I conclude that I can attach very little weight to her evidence.

Mr O is a friend of the father and married to the father's sister. I was very sceptical about his evidence. He claimed the father was not having a relationship with F, even though he must be very well aware of the relationship given how often they have contact. I place no weight on it.

The father also gave evidence over a day. He speaks very good English and did not need an interpreter. To a significant degree, as set out below, father conceded many of the issues in the threshold. His overarching case was that he had always acted to protect the children and that all his actions should be seen in that light. Although there were a number of points where I am confident the father was not truthful, in some ways the key to his evidence was that he believed himself to be entitled to treat the mother the way he did - abandoning her at Istanbul Airport with no right to either enter Turkey or return to the UK, controlling her money, her emails and her phones, keeping her under fairly constant surveillance, monitoring who she met and what she said, and keeping her away from her family. He effectively saw nothing wrong in his actions. However, he denied hitting her or raping her, and said that in terms of arguments, she was the one with mental health issues and unable to control her anger; she had mistreated the children and they were happy and better off without her. His evidence was entirely self-serving with a near total inability to see or care about the impact of his actions on either the mother or the children.

I will deal with father's evidence under the various matters in the threshold. He accepted he had two recording devices in the house so that he could effectively record for up to five hours what was happening in the house when he was not there and then download it onto his computer. He said that he did this because he was concerned the mother was hitting the children and getting angry with them and he wanted to protect them. I note the mother became extremely upset in court when the father said there was a recording device in the bedroom, and it seems she had no idea this was the case. He also accepted that he effectively controlled the mother's bank account and made applications for credit on her account. He was frank that he used her account because he found it difficult to get credit himself. However, he said he controlled the bank account because he earned the money and she needed his help to manage the banking.

It was not entirely clear to me what the father was saying about the mother's English, because when speaking about the bank account and the immigration status he said he did everything because of the mother's poor English, but at another stage of the evidence he said the mother fully understood the change of name deeds and understood more English than she was suggesting.

He said the mother got very angry with him and the children and would then be out of control and hit the children. I noted he was keen to point out that the children had said this to the school, as is recorded above. However, when it came to the children saying that he had hit them or that they missed their mother but the father would not let them speak to her, he consistently said the children were confused.

In respect of the events of July 2022 the father was very unclear. He denied starting a relationship with F in early 2022, although he did accept he first met her when the children and the mother were in Egypt. He said the mother first raised F with him in July and that led to an argument. However, he was extremely confused about, or alternatively said he could not remember, the detail of when the mother went to hospital on 22 July and the conversation he had had with C. He did not know why the children had said the mother was covered in paint, ie blood. He could not remember whether he went to hospital with the mother. He suggested that these references were to an incident later in the summer. He denied at any time hitting the mother, other than when Y said the mother had hit him on the arm and the father simulated this on the mother's arm. I do not have the slightest doubt that the father was lying about the incident on 22 July 2022.

In respect of the change of name deeds, he said that he and the mother had discussed this in advance and she had agreed. He could give no explanation as to why the mother had not gone with him and the children to the solicitors to sign the deeds. It appears the mother was at college at the time, so I have little doubt that the father arranged to do this at a time the mother was not available. He said that when she signed them later in the day she had understood what she was signing. He said that he had wanted to change the names because he wanted to declare himself bankrupt, so to have a new name would be helpful, and he thought the children might be teased because of the old name. Although the deeds were signed in March 2023, he accepted he only told the school of the name change in September, after the mother had been abandoned. He said this was because of the process of going to the GP and the passport office took time.

He claimed he had become concerned the mother intended to take X to Egypt for FGM and that is why he tricked her into going to Turkey and then not being able to return to the UK. I note there is nothing in any text message or in the multiple recordings the father made to suggest that FGM was ever raised between the parties. He accepted he had allowed the mother to go with the children to Egypt in early 2022 without apparently being concerned about FGM.

He said he was concerned about the mother's mental health and her behaviour. He did not want her to talk to other people about their sex life, and he wanted her to go to Egypt and then, if she dealt with these perceived problems, he would support her to come back to the UK. He accepted, however, that he knew the mother's spousal visa had expired in October 2023. He accepts he said he had made an application to renew it, but only shortly before they went to Turkey. I note we have no documentary evidence supporting that suggestion. In any event, he accepted he knew the mother would not be able to re-enter the UK when she left for Turkey. His evidence was that he gave the mother two boarding passes at Manchester Airport, one from Manchester to Istanbul and one from Istanbul to Alexandria in case she could not enter Turkey, but he said he was going to apply for a 24-hour visa for Turkey. In my view, this is extraordinarily unlikely given she had no visa when she checked in at Manchester. It is virtually impossible to understand how she could have got a visa to enter Turkey. I have no doubt the father was lying about the mother's understanding that she would not be able to enter Turkey.

The father effectively accepted transnational marriage abandonment but said that he did it to protect X. As his evidence went on, it became increasingly clear that his case was that he would only support the mother returning to the UK on his terms, those being in effect that he obey her and not cause trouble. He said he did not want her sharing information about their personal life with the family. I took this as meaning he did not want the mother telling her family about F. I set out texts that he sent to L above.

He accepted he continued to spend money on the mother's HSBC account after she had gone to Egypt. He said it was his money and he was entitled to spend it. He was also clear he found it hard to get credit and therefore made applications in the mother's name. In terms of the emotional impact on the children of the mother being removed, the said that they did not care and were pleased there was no more shouting.

There is no dispute between the parties on the legal principles and the case law she applied. I will set out a brief summary, but I do not need to refer to the case law by name. The burden of proof is on the local authority. The civil standard of proof applies, namely the balance of probabilities. If the local authority proves it is more probable than not that a disputed event occurred then it becomes an established fact in these proceedings. The court must reach decisions in relation to disputed allegations on evidence, not speculation or rumour, but it can draw logical inferences.

The court must reach a conclusion in respect of each separate allegation but must also take care not to compartmentalise its analysis. The entire canvas of evidence must be surveyed and each piece of evidence must be considered in the context of the other evidence. The court will be mindful of the fallibility of memory, particularly in a case where multiple accounts have been given. Where it is alleged that a person has lied, the court must have close regard to the principles set out in the well-known case of R v Lucas [1981] QB 720 and the court must be alive to the possibility that a person may lie for many different reasons, including embarrassment, a sense of shame, desire to hide some other wrongdoing. The fact that somebody lies on one point does not mean they lie on all points.

I am not going to set out all the submissions separately because they follow from the evidence, and where necessary I will deal with them in conclusions. However, in very broad summary, the local authority, the guardian and the mother all effectively advance the same case on the facts, save that the mother stresses any physical or verbal abuse of the children must be seen strongly in the context of domestic abuse. The father's case is set out in his evidence and below.

I will deal with the parties' submissions under the various topics in the threshold. In the main I accept the mother's evidence and at various points reject that of the father. I will, where possible, rely on extrinsic evidence. I agree with the guardian (strictly speaking, Mr Payne, but supported by the guardian) that one of the striking aspects of this case is that the father accepts, albeit perhaps without fully understanding the implications, two of the key aspects of the case, coercive and controlling behaviour of the mother and transnational marriage abandonment.

In my view, the father was highly controlling of the mother. He had, and largely accepted he had, control over her finances. Although she had a bank account in her name, he exercised complete control over it, holding access to an app on his phone. He treated the account as his own, draining it of money once the mother had gone to Egypt in August 2024. He appears to have applied for credit and a further account in the mother's name. I agree with the guardian there is strong evidence of credit fraud.

Mr Cleary argues that the father's financial control, if not other aspects of the mother, should be seen in the context of an Egyptian family and traditional patriarchal attitudes. First of all, that does a serious disservice to Egyptian culture. Secondly, the father's conduct in this regard goes well beyond patriarchal attitudes to money, and in any cultural context it is coercive control. He was exercising a fraud on his wife by running up spending on her account in her name quite deliberately because he could not get credit. Most importantly, he was exercising complete financial control over her. The father had almost constant and highly intrusive surveillance of the mother. He kept two hidden recording devices in the house which he could download and watch on his laptop. He appears to have had effective control over the mother's mobile phone and laptop. Importantly, in my view, the father seems to have controlled who the mother saw, and isolated her from her family and friends. The evidence of D about the visit in 2018 strongly supports this argument and suggests the control had been ongoing since the mother first came to the UK. It is important to emphasise that the extent of the father's controlling behaviour is very well outside any cultural norm.

I accept the father was physically abusive to the mother. There is consistent evidence from what the children said at the school about the father hitting the mother. Importantly, there is the 2021 referral from the college. The father suggests the mother did this to avoid having to meet a friend she had fallen out with. This is, in my view, wholly fanciful. The evidence suggests a course of conduct of physical abuse by the father of the mother. It is not in the least bit surprising, in my view, that the mother was highly reluctant to report this, whether to family members or professionals. She was living with the father and therefore at obvious risk that, if she did report it, he would become more violent to her, as appears to have been the case when she spoke to her brother in 2022. I note that it was after she spoke to C that she ended up in hospital. That is, in my view, an important nexus.

Further, and in my view also importantly, the mother was highly isolated in the UK and at risk of the father preventing her from seeing the children and withdrawing her spousal visa. The fact this was a real risk is manifest given that it was the plan the father eventually acted upon. The clearest evidence of physical abuse is July 2022, when the mother had to go to hospital. The children said she had paint on her, which must mean blood. The father's account was unclear and, I have not the slightest doubt, was untrue. He claimed not to remember if he went to hospital. He claimed to have no idea why the children said paint. He claimed a later incident but could remember specifics. I find as a fact that the father committed a serious assault on the mother in July 2022 because she had spoken to her brother about trying to leave him.

This was a household where systematic domestic abuse by the father took place on the mother. There was plainly a great deal of anger and unhappiness in the household, and unsurprisingly that impacted on the mother's behaviour to the children. I conclude that the mother has understated the degree to which she would physically chastise the children and hit them. The children quite frequently refer to the mother hitting them, and this appears to have been a combination of what might be culturally acceptable chastisement and the mother getting angry and losing her temper with the children. However, that has to be seen in the context in which the mother was living.

The audio recording suggests the mother got very angry and made various threats to the father. What those audio recordings do show is that the mother was prepared to verbally fight back and, on occasion, got very angry. I suspect that the father did not like this, and that is one of the many things he held against her.

I also accept that the father on occasions hit the children, certainly the boys. They have referred to this on a number of occasions at school, and they have referred on many occasions to being scared of their father. It seems likely to me that when the mother and children returned from Egypt in February 2022 relations became even more difficult because of the mother's suspicions about the father's relationship with F. The children's behaviour at school seems to have become very dysregulated at this point, probably reflecting what has happened at home. As the mother challenged the father and he became angry about being challenged about his relationship, the children were caught in the crossfire arguments and the father's abusive behaviour. This will undoubtedly have caused them emotional harm.

In relation to the allegations of sexual violence by the father on the mother, this largely comes down to one person's word against the other. However, firstly, I have accepted the mother as being a much more truthful witness, and secondly there are allegations of similar violence, namely anal rape, by the father's previous wife, B. I have no evidence that supports the father's allegation that B and the mother have colluded in any way, and I note that was not put to the mother. The fact that B was very reluctant to tell the police about the alleged anal rape does not support an analysis that she had been encouraged to give this evidence by the mother or the mother's family. I take into account the fact that B did not give evidence to this court and was not cross-examined and that her allegations have not been proved. However, on the face of her statement and the police interview, both of which I have read, her allegations are detailed and credible. I therefore attach some weight to them. I find the father has forced the mother to have sex against her will.

In relation to transnational marriage abandonment, the fact of this is largely accepted. The father says he did it to protect the children. His written evidence was that the mother would have X circumcised in Egypt. I note that as the evidence on this began to appear increasingly thin, he shifted in oral evidence to a primary concern, as I heard it, to protect the children from the mother's behaviour more generally. There is no issue but that the father abandoned the mother at Istanbul Airport. He knew her spousal visa had elapsed in October 2023 and that she therefore could not re-enter the UK, and he knew she had no visa for Turkey. He says the mother knew at Manchester Airport there was a risk she would not be able to enter Turkey, and she had a flight booked onwards to Alexandria. However, the evidence strongly suggests this is not the case. If the mother had known all this when she flew out of Manchester Airport then there is no reason why she should have spent two nights on the floor of Istanbul Airport and not simply got on the plane to Alexandria.

I confidently reject the father's evidence that he took this action because he was worried about FGM. There is no supporting evidence of this concern in either recordings or electronic messages in the months leading up to the abandonment. This is despite the fact that the father was routinely recording their conversations. Although the mother herself had been circumcised as a child, D was clear that none of the younger women in the mother's family had been. There is also no mention of this alleged risk in the communications between the father and the brothers after the abandonment. The father says this is because L assured him it would not happen. However, if that was true, why did father not get that assurance earlier? Also, D says that the first time she and C knew about the allegations of the threat of FGM was in October when the social worker told her. This indicates very strongly that the father had not discussed this issue with the brothers. In my view, it is overwhelmingly obvious that the father is lying.

In terms of more general protection of the children, I also reject father's evidence. The evidence points very clearly to the father simply wanting to get rid of the mother because she had become troublesome and because he wanted to live with F. I note that he introduced F into the household almost as soon as he and the children returned to the UK without the mother. I do not accept his evidence that he would have supported the mother to return to the UK if she had agreed to his terms. Both his conduct and the text messages I have set out above strongly suggest he intended she remained in Egypt. The evidence suggests this was a longstanding plan by father given that the spousal visa had expired in October 2023, so from that moment onwards the father knew that if he got the mother out of the country, she could not return.

This is as unpleasant and abusive an abandonment as I have seen. It falls clearly within paragraph 2B of PD 12J. The father cared nothing for the impact it had on the mother and the children. He lied to the children about what had happened to the mother and continues to show no consideration or empathy for their distress at being separated from their mother. There was also strong evidence of him having alienated the children from the mother, both before and after the abandonment. I accept the mother's evidence that he told the children she was "crazy", encouraged X to report back on what the mother had done, and did his utmost to replace the mother, with the children, with F.

I do not make any findings that the father has sexually abused the children. I have not referred to this allegation above because, in my view, the evidence supporting it is not there. The evidence only supports a finding that there may have been some inappropriate sexual boundaries in the household. I do find as a fact the allegation that the father watched pornography in front of the children. First of all, as I have said, I accept mother's evidence overall, but also I see no reason why the mother would have lied about this given the strength of the other allegations. The father's response to this allegation was nothing short of extraordinary, seeking to blame the mother for him wanting to watch pornography.

So those are the allegations I find.

In terms of the father's allegations against the mother, I have accepted that the mother did physically chastise the children and at times lost her temper with them. They undoubtedly suffered significant harm by living in a household with domestic abuse. I do not accept the mother physically assaulted any of the children out of malice. The audio recording of X saying to the mother that the father told them not to hit the children does not come close to establishing that the mother did deliberately hit the children.

I do not accept the mother was in any meaningful sense abusive of the father. They undoubtedly had very bad arguments, and she said on occasion, "I will kill you." However, in no realistic sense does that amount to a threat to kill. This is one aspect of the case where I agree with Mr Cleary that one has to see these things in a cultural context. Some of the parents' conversations remind one of bad Egyptian television.

The father alleges the mother lied on Egyptian court documents about the family home being in Egypt. It is not proportionate to try to get to the bottom of the Egyptian proceedings whereby the mother was trying to get access to a property to live in. In any event, given that the father had abandoned her and removed the money from her bank account, her attempts to get somewhere to live in Egypt seem entirely reasonable.

Finally, Mr Cleary says the mother lied to the social worker about not having been circumcised. The mother said she did this because there was a male interpreter and she was embarrassed. That, in my view, was wholly understandable in the context of having a male interpreter and not wanting to speak about FGM.