David Hodson on International Family Law: Child abduction as criminal kidnapping

In the recent R v Kayani R v Solliman decision [2011] EWCA Crim 2871 the Court of Appeal has called upon the Law Commission to address the question of whether parental child abduction cases should be treated as kidnapping offences. The court further recommended that pending any such change to legislation the maximum sentence for child abduction cases should be increased. Currently the offence carries a sentence length of seven years' imprisonment under the Child Abduction Act 1984; however if the substantive law is changed in this regard perpetrators of child abduction could potentially face life imprisonment -as is the maximum sentence in kidnapping cases.

The Lord Chief Justice in his reserved judgment held that a parent abducting a child is...

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