Court awards travel costs and emotional damages but deducts more than €54,000 in unpaid child support owed by the father.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Court of First Instance has ordered a woman to pay her former husband €41,783.08, plus statutory interest, after finding that she unlawfully took their three children from St. Maarten to South Africa without his knowledge or consent.
In a judgment delivered September 29, 2026, and published October 30, Judge J.R. Veerman awarded the father €71,516.08 in travel and accommodation expenses and €25,000 in nonmaterial damages.
However, the court deducted €54,733 in outstanding child support owed by the father, substantially reducing the amount the mother must pay.
The ruling concerns civil liability and damages. It is not a criminal conviction. The published judgment withholds both parents’ names and the children’s identities.
Children taken to South Africa without consent
The family had lived in St. Maarten since 2019. The parents shared parental authority over their three children.
On October 30, 2022, the mother left for South Africa with the children without the father’s knowledge or permission. She and the children remained there.
The mother argued that the situation with the father was unsafe and that she and the children could no longer remain in St. Maarten. The father disputed her allegations about his conduct.
The court found that even if her account were established, it would not justify the unilateral relocation. She should have approached the authorities in St. Maarten and requested judicial permission to move with the children.
The judge also rejected her argument that informing the father of the children’s whereabouts after arriving in South Africa meant she had not interfered with his parental authority.
The court found that the unauthorized removal restricted both his ability to exercise that authority and the opportunities for contact between father and children. It also infringed their right to family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Later Residence Decision did not Make Departure Lawful
In November 2023, the St. Maarten court determined that the children should remain with their mother in South Africa because returning them could cause further harm. They appeared to have settled there, and a return was not expected to improve their relationship with their father.
The damages judgment emphasized that this later decision did not make the original departure lawful.
It reflected the children’s interests in the circumstances at the time, rather than approval of the mother’s decision to take them abroad without consent.
Father Returned to Find Family Gone
In assessing the father’s claim for emotional damages, the court described the abrupt circumstances of his discovery.
Returning from an overseas trip, he went from the airport to the former marital home expecting to see the mother and children and collect his car.
Instead, he found only the family dog.
Nobody returned that afternoon, that evening, or the following day. He could not reach the mother by telephone. Several days later, he learned that she and the children had flown to South Africa.
The court found that contact with the children in the following years was extremely difficult and, at times, impossible.
According to the judgment, a court-appointed representative for the children in South Africa reported that the mother had turned them against their father to an extent characterized as parental alienation.
The St. Maarten judgment also recorded that the South African court had indicated it would seriously consider placing the children primarily with the father if he lived in South Africa. That observation did not change the children’s existing residence arrangement.
€25,000 Awarded for Emotional Harm
The father described feelings of powerlessness and failure as a parent, along with the distress of being unable to watch his children grow up and having only sporadic contact with them.
The mother disputed his account and challenged whether he had demonstrated psychological injury.
The court nevertheless found that the nature and seriousness of the infringement justified nonmaterial damages without requiring proof of a psychiatric injury.
The judge considered the prolonged separation, the considerable distance between St. Maarten and South Africa, the sudden departure, the children’s young ages, the severely restricted contact, and the reported parental alienation.
The court considered an award of €25,000appropriate.
Travel Costs Allowed; Other Claims Rejected
The court awarded the father the full €71,516.08 claimed for travel and accommodation connected with proceedings in South Africa and visits to the children.
The judge found those expenses were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the unauthorized relocation.
The mother argued that the father traveled business class, stayed in five-star hotels, and could combine visits with other activities in South Africa. The court found that she had not sufficiently explained what specific reduction should follow from those objections.
Other substantial claims were rejected.
The father could not recover the legal fees and children’s psychological support expenses claimed in this case because the South African court had already ruled on responsibility for those costs. Its decisions initially divided relevant expenses between the parents, while a later punitive costs order required the father to pay the procedural and expert costs covered by that order because of conduct the South African court deemed unacceptable.
The claim for future travel expenses was insufficiently specific. The rental claim for retaining the former marital home also failed because the father would have incurred those housing costs had the mother and children remained in St. Maarten.
Unpaid Child Support Reduced the Award
Before deductions, the successful damages claims totaled € 96,516.08.
The mother sought to offset that amount against unpaid child support. She stated that the father owed Cg. 2,939.50 monthly under the November 2023 decision and had never paid, leaving arrears of Cg. 111,700.
The father did not contest that claim.
The court therefore deducted its stated euro equivalent of €54,733, leaving €41,783.08 payable to him.
Statutory interest runs from January 30, 2024, until full payment. The payment order was declared provisionally enforceable, and each party must bear their own costs of this civil proceeding.
Source: Court of First Instance of St. Maarten, judgment of September 29, 2026, case SXM202400262, ECLI:NL:OGEAM:2026:141.