A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy whose father is in jail for murdering his mother should be raised by the killer’s family in Britain because it would be less disruptive than sending him to maternal relations in China, a High Court judge has ruled.

Mr Justice Holman said that, although the boy’s grandparents are the “last living link” with his mother and could offer him a good home, sending him to live with people he barely knew in a country where he did not speak the language may add to the trauma of his ordeal.

The Family Court, sitting in Birmingham, heard how the father bludgeoned his estranged wife to death in a “very premeditated and carefully planned attack” last year, apparently prompted by a dispute over contact arrangements with his son. The couple cannot be named to protect the son’s identity.

Mr Justice Holman explained, in a judgment published online, how the grandparents – who own two factories in China, and live in a large house close to the coast with extended family nearby – believe they should raise the boy.

But the court heard how the boy, who has been in foster care since the father’s arrest, barely knows his grandparents and had expressed some reservations about going to live in China because of the language barrier.

By contrast, he has already become close to his father’s sister and her husband, who are both solicitors living in the south of England, and their children, his cousins, who are of a similar age to him.

Explaining his decision that the aunt and uncle should raise the boy, despite it being usual practice in such cases for the victim’s family to get custody, the judge said: “He has suffered an immense emotional and psychological shock already. His transition to a new home needs to be as smooth and uncomplicated as it is possible to achieve.”