Northern Ireland's Court of Appeal has dismissed a father's latest attempt to overturn a residence order in favour of the mother of their 14-year-old son, ruling that the original decision by Kinney J was sound in law and supported by the evidence. The judgment, delivered on 12 May 2026 by Treacy LJ and Colton J, found no merit in any of the three grounds of appeal brought by the father, who represented himself.

The father had applied for a residence order that would have seen the child, identified only as NI, move from Northern Ireland to live with him in England. Kinney J refused that application in a written judgment dated 24 October 2025. A residence order in favour of the mother has been in place continuously since 2013 and has been upheld by courts on multiple occasions, including in 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025.

The father argued that Kinney J had misapplied the law, ignored evidence, and demonstrated bias toward the mother's legal team. He also claimed he had been excluded from a hearing on 4 June 2025 and that an expert should have been directed to examine issues of attachment and domestic violence. The Court of Appeal rejected each of these grounds in turn.

On the question of evidence, the appeal court noted that the father had failed to provide meaningful information about the practical arrangements that would follow if NI relocated to England, including proposed care, education, or contact arrangements with the mother. The court highlighted that Kinney J had found the father's application to be absent any consideration of the benefits of relocation for a 13-year-old leaving a settled home, school, and social network for an unknown quality of life in England with a family he had not seen for five years.

The court found that the father's non-attendance at the 4 June 2025 review was the result of his own error, noting he had been present at the case management hearing on 8 May 2025 when that review date was set. The court also found no basis for directing an expert on attachment and violence, noting that the father's limited relationship with NI was a consequence of his own choices, including his failure to comply with contact arrangements and his decision not to engage with the child through indirect means over several years. The father had not had direct contact with NI since the period between Christmas 2020 and New Year 2021.

The Official Solicitor, appointed to represent NI, spoke with the child ahead of the hearing and reported that NI does not currently wish to have contact with his father. The court took those wishes into account as part of the welfare checklist under the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, which requires the welfare of the child to be the paramount consideration in such proceedings.

The appeal court described Kinney J's decision as unimpeachable. It also noted that a previous Court of Appeal ruling in October 2024 had observed that the father's persistent inability to move beyond past litigation and focus on his son's present best interests had been the defining feature of proceedings spanning more than twelve years. Costs orders have been made against the father at multiple stages. Court proceedings in this matter began when NI was under one year old, in late 2012. The 4 October 2025 order by Kinney J also rescinded the existing contact order and replaced it with an indirect contact order, with a restriction on further applications set to expire on NI's sixteenth birthday.