Edward Devereux KC, Rob George and Edward Bennett in Re K (Children) – an important case concerning immigration and family law, and children crossing the channel on small boats
3rd Mar 2025 | Cases
In Re K (Children) (Application for return orders: Concurrent asylum claims) [2025] EWHC 450 (Fam) and Re K (Children) (No 2) (Application for return orders: best interests decisions) [2025] EWHC 451 (Fam) the High Court held that: (a) the family court has the power to implement a return of children with extant protection claims to safe third states; and (b) previous Supreme Court authority to the contrary need not be followed on account of the shift in legal landscape since it was handed down.
A family of four sought to travel to England through France utilising people smugglers and small boats. However, the children, aged 6 and 9, became separated from their parents such that they undertook the journey across the channel alone, whilst the parents remained in France.
The parents did not seek the return of the children to France. They sought leave to enter the UK, and the children were deemed to have made asylum applications.
The children’s circumstances raised concerns at the highest political levels in England and France about the risks of children being subjected, by people smugglers and parents, to perilous channel crossings alone if it was believed that sending them to England alone was a route to families securing entry to the UK.
The Local Authority considered it was imperative to reunite the children with their parents and ultimately concluded that this was best achieved through returning the children to France. The Local Authority issued proceedings in the Family Division to secure orders to that effect.
The Supreme Court in G v G [2021] UKSC 9 prohibited the implementation of a return order to any state pending the resolution of a child’s asylum claim. In Re K, the High Court held that the Supreme Court’s decision was based on legislation that no longer applies, such that the bar on a return to a safe third state has now been removed.
Edward Devereux KC and Edward Bennett appeared for the applicant local authority, Kent County Council.
Professor Rob George appeared with others for the Secretary of State for the Home Department, led by Sir James Eadie KC.
Also featured in The Telegraph, The Guardian, Daily Mail and Local Government Lawyer and on GB News.
