An academic at Cambridge University, UK, has been ordered to return her seven-year-old son to his father in Japan, a family court has ruled.

The judges claim that the man and woman, at the time both academics at different universities in Japan, split in 2013 after nine years of marriage. Although they had reached an agreement about sharing care of their son, the dispute of whether the woman can take their son to the UK after being offered a post at Cambridge, had not been ruled by a court in Tokyo before she set off with the boy.

The father had asked Judge Angela Finnerty to order his sons return to Japan, under the terms of international civil legislation relating to child abduction.

The judge is confident that the boy has been taken to the UK unlawfully in breach of the father’s custody rights.

– Mona Neuhauss

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