Court orders father to bring child home from Turkey
(CNS): The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands has ordered a man who took his 8-year-old Caymanian daughter to Turkey to bring her home. The child, who was born in the Cayman Islands, was taken to her father’s native country without the knowledge or consent of her local mother. The ruling in the confidential case has been released with reporting restrictions on identifying the family members. It reveals that last month, the father told the mother he was taking the child to the movies but instead took her on a flight to London and then on to Istanbul.
At around 5:15am, after the father had taken the child and was already in the UK, he called the mother to say that he was with the child at the Westin Hotel and would bring her home by noon. Later that day, the mother called the police, who were able to confirm that the child and the father had left on a British Airways flight to London and onward to Turkey.
The mother was told that her husband had purchased one-way tickets, and she also learned that day that he had asked his business partner to buy out his interest.
The following day, the father admitted that they were in Turkey and sent messages asking the mother to join them there. However, the mother demanded that the child be returned, talked about divorce proceedings and threatened to involve Interpol. In response, the father claimed he didn’t need permission to take the child on vacation.
The mother told the court that, based on messages she exchanged with him and the child via the grandmother and other information, this was not a vacation. The father had taken all the original copies of the child’s paperwork and had contacted her school for her academic records. The mother feared that this was so that he could enrol the child at a school in Turkey.
“It is this action, coupled with… the surreptitious way in which the father removed the child, the fact that he asked his business partner to pay out his share in their business, the fact that US$15,550… and other funds… have been transferred by him to his personal Turkish bank account and the fact that he had purchased only a one-way flight ticket, that leads the mother to conclude that the father does not intend to return the child to the Cayman Islands,” Justice Richard Williams stated in his ruling.
The law does not allow parents to take unilateral action to remove children from the Cayman Islands. Permission is required from all of those with parental responsibility or from the court. “Neither have been given to the father in this case,” the judge stated. “Taking a child abroad without such permission amounts to a ‘wrongful removal’. That is what the position is in this case.”
The child was born in the Cayman Islands and has always lived with her mother. From 2019 to 2021, she stayed with her mother in Turkey while her father remained here. The parents were still cohabiting in the matrimonial home in Grand Cayman until the father left the Cayman Islands on 10 November.
Justice Williams said he was satisfied that the court had jurisdiction to make orders in relation to the child. Having found that the child was wrongfully taken from Cayman and having considered the “welfare checklist” in relation to the Hague Convention, with the child’s welfare his paramount consideration, he issued an order requiring the father to return the child to Cayman immediately and blocked him from getting her education records.
Turkey is a contracting state to the 1980 Hague Convention on Child Abduction, which is designed to ensure the fast return of children to the country where they normally live if they are wrongly removed.
“The mother has quite correctly contacted the Cayman Islands Central Authority, who are in
the process of making an application to the Central Authority of Turkey to seek the return
of the child to the Cayman Islands,” the judge revealed. “If the father fails to comply with the orders of the Grand Court, then the application for a return order for the child will take place in the Courts in Turkey. It is very important that the Central Authority in Turkey is provided with the child’s address there.”
The question for the Turkish court will be whether the child has been wrongfully removed, and if it finds that she has, it must order her return, Justice Williams said, explaining that defences to an application under the Convention are limited.
In a footnote to the ruling on 16 November, the judge said that at a second hearing, the mother’s attorney told the court that the husband had purchased tickets for himself and the child to return to Grand Cayman on 5 December, but he had not informed his wife, nor had she been provided with or seen any flight tickets. The mother believes that if the father has purchased tickets, he has only done so to delay any Hague Convention proceedings in Turkey.
“Having reviewed this additional information, I find that the orders made in my ex tempore ruling of 15 November 2023 remain the same,” the judge said in response to the new information at that point. “The father has wrongfully removed the child. He did not have the consent of the mother to permanently remove the child or even to temporarily remove the child for almost four weeks during the school term.”
He said the surrounding evidence, including the original one-way tickets to Turkey, the sale of his business assets here, the transfer of funds, the surreptitious manner in which the child was removed and the attempts to obtain the child’s academic records all support a genuine concern that the father’s intention was to wrongfully remove and keep the child permanently in Turkey.
Since the ruling was published around one week ago, there has been no indication as to whether or not the child has been returned to Cayman or the current status of the proceedings in Turkey if she has not.
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Category: Local News
My God! New fear unlocked. Will always keep possession of all passports now.
lol 🙂 … and tell me, how in thw world will interpol track him down in Turkey???
You’d be surprised how seriously this is taken in countries that are signed up to the Hague Convention. This happened to a friend of mine in Cayman whose child was taken to Mexico. A combination of Interpol and Mexican police kicked down a door, found that child and returned them to Cayman.
I have been to the US and Jamaica with my 5 kids over the past 20 years and as single father and none have my last name and been doing that since my oldest was 3 yes old and never once asked by anyone for anything other than how long is your stay sir?
I know some country’s require the absent traveling parent to give permission but not all countries do that. this is simply a case of the father was smart enough to plan ahead and do as he wanted. but looking to blame is just making excuses for the fact that the father is in wrong.
Travelling on an one way ticket without the other parent should have been a warning bell going off in the check-in agent head. Most countries in the world that would have been a red flag. My brother got held up in Miami travelling with me and my cousin. Anytime my youngest son travels with his siblings, I send a notarized permission letter with them.
my child is registered with my last name, so I never had any issues traveling with him alone. I wonder if the child was registered in his name or the mother’s name. If the man’s name, from my point of view it would have made it much easier for him to leave with the child and not be questioned.
Oooh, I bet he’s so scared.
Good on Williams for ruling thus. Mrc Anthony did the opposite and ruined many families
What case was this please? I’m doing some research.
Born in Cayman but has no rights with out applying for the right before age 18.
Better off in Turkey
I bet the kid (and realistically most people who have actually been to Turkiye) feels differently and would love to get back here ASAP.
Turkiye is G20 Country and NATO country.
At least turkey has culture.
We just have turkeys
…and yet, here you are.
Illegal billboard Kenny B would have something top say about this
Like what?
If the child has a Turkish passport, good luck with that.
Why wasn’t the dad stopped and asked for proof of permission from the mother to travel at the airport in Cayman?
Because that is not how the world works or should work. We should not cater to the lowest common denominator and make every parent ever traveling solo with a child get a letter or have their trip canceled. This is the fathers fault not the fault of Cayman immigration. Don’t try to place blame where it is not needed.
Except that’s how it works in the normal world. That’s precisely their job
Sorry, nope. Both my wife and I have taken our three children to numerous foreign countries separately and have never been questioned either entering or departing – Cayman (many, many times: 30+), France, Italy, Spain, Turks and Caicos, plus several more. You obviously don’t travel Internationally. We had passports, Birth Certificates and ID’s; no questions asked. And at least one (Cayman to Chicago) was with one way tickets.
your family more than likely all have the same last name……. in cases where the kid has the dads name for example, its much more common obviously
this happened to me a few times when i was younger and my dad had to write a letter for permission so yea.. lol its common just not to you, friend.
I have the same experience as 5.22pm above and I have a different last name from my children. I travel with some or all of them frequently (with or without their father). Never any questions, and no-one has ever asked for a permission letter – I had one with me the first time and have never bothered since.
5:22 here.
Nope again. Our eldest is our Nephew when his parents passed in an accident when he was 3. he has his own last name. So AGAIN! You don’t KNOW the facts that you are arguing. Stop trying to push a point that is simply factually incorrect.
How it works in a lot of countries, if you want to travel alone with your child you need a letter from the other parent signed and witnessed.
Unless you have sole custody of your child after divorce then the other parent has no say in where you go with that child.
If you are not married, mothers have all rights, that is what I observed.
But….the Crown (Government) is parens patriae.
Every time I traveled out of Cayman with my Caymanian children (I am an expat, their father is Caymanian), I traveled with a notarized letter from their father advising that he knew I was traveling with them during those particular dates. He and I got divorced, I had full custody and no longer needed that letter, but still traveled with it because every now and again an immigration official would indeed ask if their father knew I was traveling off Cayman with his children. I preferred to not have any hassle.
That is how it works though. I need to have permission from my wife anytime i take my daughter to the USA without her. It is the fault of Cayman Immigration/Airline.
I’ve never been asked once for a letter when travelling with my kids and without my wife.
Not true, my wife left with my kids to the Philippines via Canada and she had to show a consent letter with my signature and ID. Not bullet proof, but something at least.
The ‘tone’ of your response is kind of shitty. But no. It is not the fault of Cayman immigration. It is the arrival country immigration. A few years ago I was questioned at US immigration about traveling from Cayman to Miami with my boyfriends 12/13 year old daughter. We did not have a letter from her dad. Fortunately, they were satisfied with the answers the young lady gave the officer and we were free to go. So yes, that is how the world works.
It is how the world works, wake the hell up!
Shirking responsobility and blaming someone else again! The father got away, whose fault is it? Getting rewarded with $1,500 bonus?
As a single mother, I always had to make sure I had a letter of consent with me when travelling with the child.
Immigration should have erred on side of caution especially if child 10 years or younger, and waited for confirmation from the other parent.
That would take common sense.
That would require two government departments to talk to each other.
Data protection.
Idiots!
1:46 what??? you can’t be serious.
2:29 which two departments?
zzzzzzzz
I was not able to travel to Canada with my children without a letter from my spouse and vice versa confirming that I had permission to travel alone with them. Each and every time I travelled alone with them I was questioned where the other parent was and if I had a letter. I never presented the letter up front because I wanted to test the process and I was always asked.