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International child custody dispute in Texas

On Behalf of | Oct 18, 2012 | Child Custody

A Texas father is currently involved in an international child custody dispute. The father and the mother of the child were at one time engaged to each other, and the mother is a British native. However, when the couple took their child to the United Kingdom for a visit, the father alleges the mother remained there with the child and never returned to the United States.

The father has already had two courts rule against him in this child custody dispute, but he does plan on taking his case onto the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals located in Texas. The father is claiming that new evidence discovered by his attorney indicates that the mother had been conspiring to take their daughter to the United Kingdom with the intention of never returning.

Child custody battles are always challenging, but when parents are citizens of different countries and one of them wishes to return to that country these circumstances become even more difficult. While a United States court might award custody to the father, a foreign court might award custody to the mother.

Furthermore, as in the above circumstance, a parent in the US might flee with the child to another country where different child custody laws could prohibit the other parent from ever seeing the child. Or it is possible that one parent is merely on the move to prevent the law from ever catching up.

Despite such a matter involving state, federal and international law, one common theme in all child custody cases is the welfare of the child. No court wishes to make a decision that benefits one parent over the other without it also in some way benefitting the child as well.

We will have to wait and see how the Texas court decides on this particular matter.

Source: KDAF TV, “Plano father locked in international custody dispute alleges kidnapping, fraud,” Sep. 18, 2012