Opinion ID: 1257752
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lyons

Text: Appellant Herbert Lee Lyons married appellee Margaret Verity Flower Lyons, a British subject, in Arlington County in 1971. A son was born in 1975. Marital discord developed. On April 13, 1982, the mother left the marital abode without notice to the father, took the child, and went to England. The father, a government lawyer, was out-of-state at the time. On the next day, the mother filed an Originating Summons in the English High Court of Justice, Oxford District Registry. She asked that the child be made a Ward of Court and that the court award her the care and control of the boy. On April 30, the father filed the present suit against the mother for divorce based on wilful desertion. Asserting the child's whereabouts were unknown, the father requested that he be awarded custody of the child. On May 20, the father was served with the English summons, along with a notice advising that the child had become a Ward of Court on April 14. This was the first knowledge the father had after April 13 of the location of the child and mother. According to the notice, the effect of the wardship is to prohibit the child from marrying or leaving England or Wales without leave of the High Court and, further, to prohibit any material change in the child's welfare, care and control, or education without leave of court. The father then moved the High Court to terminate the wardship and to order the child's return to Virginia for a decision on custody. After a hearing at which both parents testified personally, the High Court granted the father's request on June 28. The mother appealed. On July 6, the Supreme Court of Judicature, Court of Appeal, reversed the decision of the High Court. It ordered that the child remain in the interim care and control of the mother and that further English proceedings on the issue of custody be expedited. In the meantime, the mother had been served with the divorce papers. She filed an answer and cross-bill in Virginia seeking a divorce from the father on the ground of cruelty and asking the court to award her custody of the child. Next, the father filed in the Virginia court a motion that an order be entered compelling the mother to return the child to Fairfax County. In considering the father's motion, the chancellor reviewed the record of the English proceedings. After a hearing on August 30, the court denied his motion, deciding to grant comity to the Court of Appeal's order of July 6. On September 23, the trial court entered the order from which the father appeals. Subsequently, the trial court granted the father a divorce a mensa et thoro from the mother on the ground of wilful desertion occurring on April 13. The court dismissed the mother's cross-bill. On December 20, after a custody hearing at which the parents again testified in person, the English High Court decided that the child should remain a ward of the court. The court also ruled that the mother should have care and control of the child and that the father should have access to the child as specified in the order.