A homesick American mum living in Leeds has lost her fight for permission to move back to the US with her daughter, against the child's father's wishes.
The woman sobbed as Appeal Court judges in London refused to lift a ban on her leaving the count
ry with the couple's six-year-old child.
Judges said the girl's strong relationship with her father and his family outweighed the mother's desire to return to her homeland.
Both mother and daughter must both now stay in the UK.
The girl's parents met in the 1990s and she moved to England to live with him soon after.
But the relationship was rocky and the birth of their only child failed to cement the marriage.
After splitting up, the mum, who cannot be named for legal reasons, remarried but again failed to settle – prompting her plans to return to the US to be nearer her sister and her family.
Yesterday, Lord Justice Thorpe described the strong relationship that had developed between the girl and her father.
Attached
He said: "His case was that over the course of the five years of his daughter's life, a very secure contact pattern had developed.
"The child travels every weekend the 200-odd miles from her home to the father's home. He has another partner and, by that partner, has another daughter, who is now one-year-old.
"Also in the area are his parents, and they have a close attachment to their grand-daughter."
After her application for permission to take the girl away was rejected at Leeds County Court last year, the mum appealed.
Lord Justice Thorpe, dismissing the mother's challenge, said it had been a "very difficult" case to decide, given the girl's half-American nationality and the good life being provided for her by her mum in the Leeds area.
vicki.robinson@ypn.co.uk
