A mother who brought her two young children from the United Kingdom to Jamaica on what she told their father was a one-month vacation, but later enrolled them in school, has been ordered to return them to Britain by May 16.

Justice Andrea Martin-Swaby ruled that the mother's retention of the children in Jamaica was unlawful under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, to which both Jamaica and the United Kingdom are contracting states.

The children - identified only by initials as GL, aged five, and G-JL, aged two - were born in the United Kingdom and had lived there from birth until July 27, 2025, when their mother brought them to Jamaica, having told the father the trip would last one month. The father consented to that visit but did not consent to what followed.