The summer holiday custody wars

Sending your children away with an ex can be an anxious time for the parent left home alone, says Tanith Carey

With three weeks to go before the start of term, Grace Stewart consoled herself that she could use the fortnight her son was abroad with her ex-husband to pick up the last bits of uniform he would need for his new school. But as the end of their trip drew near, 12-year-old Theo showed no sign of returning home.

“When I heard nothing about Theo’s return plans, I kept calling his mobile, but it was always switched off,” says Grace, a 42-year-old yoga teacher from Worcestershire. “Finally, I rang my ex-husband’s PA, who informed me there’d been a change of plan and Alex was taking Theo on another business trip.

“Theo had not had an easy time at his old school and he was nervous about starting a new one. His father was allowing him to run away.”

That was two years ago and Theo is still travelling with his father. “I rarely hear from him – I suspect because correspondence is vetted by his dad. He’s changed so much. Even if he comes home, I don’t think I will ever get back the son I had.”

Every year, about 500 children are unlawfully removed from the UK by one of their estranged parents. In cases where the child is taken abroad without permission, they are classed as abductions. But if the child had permission to go abroad – usually for a holiday – and is not brought back, they are called “wrongful retentions”.

And while Grace’s case is extreme, it is also a reminder that school holidays can be fraught with worry for some parents. One in three children in the UK will see their mothers and fathers separate by the time they turn 16, and family mediators, lawyers and parent advice lines all report a spike in calls at this time of year from parents worried about vacation arrangements.

Vicky Mayes of Reunite, a charity that advises families about abductions, says it is only in the most extreme cases that children don’t come home. “We do see a rise in calls at around this time from worried parents. But they should rest assured that it’s very rare for parents who are taking children to the usual foreign holiday resorts, like Spain or Greece, not to return them.”

Warning signs include the other parent giving up their work or home in the UK, or asking for paperwork such as the child’s health records, she says. “If parents see those sort of red flags, we advise them to seek legal advice, as the family courts can make rulings and take steps to stop a child being taken out of the country.”

Grace and her ex-husband Alex met and lived in the UK, but their marriage ended when Theo was eight and Alex moved abroad to a tax haven. Grace continued to send her son to visit his father, but when Theo decided he did not want to start at a new school, his father told him he did not have to go.

Grace says: “Because they have been travelling around the world, and it’s a multiple jurisdiction issue, the law is a toothless tiger. Every court order I have had placed on Alex has been ignored and my relationship with Theo has suffered. He now says he wants to live full-time with his father. The police said they could not help because I had given him permission to go in the first place.

“The last time I saw Theo, I hugged him close and said: ‘You will come back, won’t you?’ If only I’d known what lay ahead.”

The holiday season can also create friction between estranged parents over other issues, such as differences of opinion over holiday destinations.

“This year in particular, we’ve had an increase in queries about where the other parent can and can’t take

Many separated couples argue over their child’s holidays

the children, probably due to worries about how safe it is to travel overseas,” says Kate Bannerjee, of legal firm Jones Myers. “One mother rang me to say she was absolutely terrified her ex was taking their child to Turkey, because of recent unrest.

“The worries mainly boil to down the same thing – the parent left behind feels helpless because if anything goes wrong, they won’t be there to help or protect the child. So we suggest that the parent going away on holiday gives the other as much information as possible about their travel plans to help reduce their anxiety.”

Parents can find it very hard to say goodbye to their child for two weeks, especially if they are still young, says family mediator Kate Daly, who helps parents talk through differences without going to court. “If the mother is the primary carer, she may feel the father won’t understand the child’s routine or how to comfort them the way she would.”

Daly, who has created an app called Amicable so families can create online parenting plans for things like summer holidays, says she tries to help parents see it from the child’s perspective. “Some might compromise by agreeing not to take such a long holiday or by taking the family nanny along, too.”

Juliet, 45, admits it’s taken her several years to have enough confidence to let her ex-husband Paul take their daughter Emma, now 11, abroad. The couple split eight years

It is very rare for a parent not to return a child after a holiday

ago, when Emma was four. “Until last year, I was only OK about him taking her to Center Parcs,” says Juliet, a business coach from Eastbourne, East Sussex. “I didn’t want him taking her to a foreign country, because I felt he would be out of his depth if she fell ill or had an accident.”

However, she now recognises that it does Emma good to go further afield with her father. “I’ve learnt to appreciate that, as a dad, he can persuade her to be more adventurous and help her try new things, like diving and water skiing, which I would never do with her.”

And hard though it may be to admit, sometimes lingering resentments may also underlie one parent’s objections to the other’s holiday plans.

“You may not like the fact your ex is off to a five-star hotel in Dubai with the kids, while you’re left at home and possibly worse off financially since the divorce,” says divorce coach Sara Davison, author of a new book, Uncoupling, published in September.

“But look at your child’s interests first. It’s clearly best for them to have a good relationship with both their mum and their dad.” Some names have been changed