A High Court Judge has ruled that a 14-year-old boy is better off living in Sierra Leone than in the UK.
The teenager was taken to the West African country’s capital, Freetown, as his mother was growing increasingly worried about his involvement in ‘county lines’ gangs in London after he was excluded from school.
A civil case was brought at the High Court by the boy’s father who took the legal action in London in a bid to force his return from Africa after he said that his son was living in a volatile country.
The mother said that the teenager should stay in Sierra Leone until the summer of 2022 and when he finishes his GCSEs.
Mr Justice Mostyn ruled against the father when he also said that the boy should stay in Freetown until the end of his GCSEs in 2022.
He said that the boy was “going off the rails” by early 2019 whilst he was living with his mother in south London.
Last year he (the boy) was permanently excluded from school.
Mr Justice Mostyn did say that the woman had decided to take her son to Sierra Leone, where her mother – the boy’s grandmother – is a police officer, so that he could continue his education.
