I have to say, even after years and years of doing child protection law, I never actually thought I’d see cases in Court where parents were trying to get their children to become terrorists and fight in a war. But we are seeing these cases, and as I understand it, the reported cases are the tip of an iceberg.
If you are advising someone in this situation, or advising a Local Authority where such a thing is suspected, the President’s decision in Re M (Children) 2015 is going to be mandatory reading. It is particularly useful since it sets out in detail the orders made to protect the children and to recover them, and is an excellent route-map for future cases. Rather than drafting from scratch and having to invent what needs to be done (and I’ve an inkling of just how hard that is in such cases), there’s now a source for how to assemble a workable order that will do the job.
There’s a very good summary by Marilyn Stowe here, and I recommend that also http://www.marilynstowe.co.uk/2015/05/21/high-court-considers-family-who-vanished-with-their-children/
All agencies worked amazingly quickly and creatively to get these children back into the UK and save them from what would really be unthinkable, that they be pushed by their parents into taking up arms in a war zone.
