Court orders boy to live with father he hates

London: A boy of 11 has been ordered to leave his mother and move more than 106 kilometres to live with the father he hates.

Appeal Court judges accepted last week that the boy was thriving with his mother, enjoying a life full of activities.

Yet they still ruled that he should live with his father, whom he has not seen for nearly four years.

Experts said the judgment reflected the emphasis the courts were now putting on the role of fathers and on the need for children to have contact with both parents.

The boy's parents split up before he was born and the father has been striving to win access for years.

The mother had said she was happy for the boy to have contact with his father — when he was ready to do so. But the Appeal Court upheld an earlier ruling at Coventry Crown Court, where Judge Clifford Bellamy said he was unconvinced that the mother really wanted contact to resume.

The appeal judges called the boy's feelings of hate for his father ‘irrational' and said he would suffer long-term emotional and behavioural problems if they were not reunited.

Judge Bellamy said "no stone had been left unturned" to re-establish contact between father and son.