High Court rules west Africa safer than London for teenager
His parents enrolled him in a boarding school
The High Court's ruled a teenager is safer in west Africa than he would be in London
The boy who can't be identified was taken to Ghana by his parents who enrolled him in school there and then returned home
The boy previously said he had been "tricked", and his lawyers asked a judge to order that he be brought back to the UK, having lived in the country since birth.
However in a judgment on Thursday, Mr Justice Hayden said that the teenager "is at real risk of suffering greater harm in returning to the UK than if he were to remain in Ghana".
"I recognise that this is, in many ways, both a sobering and rather depressing conclusion," the judge added, finding the decision to relocate the boy was within "the generous ambit of parental decision taking".
At a hearing earlier in February, the High Court in London heard that the parents' concerns about their son had been growing up to the decision to take him out of the UK.
These concerns included poor school attendance, being aggressive, susceptibility to being groomed, an allegation of stealing phones, and worrying Snapchat conversations.
Mr Justice Hayden said the parents' actions "were borne of desperation and fear", later adding that he did "deprecate" their deception.
He also said: "It is their case, which I have no difficulty accepting, that they were genuinely worried about his safety. They devised a plan which they both recognise attracts legitimate criticism and involved a deception on their son."
The High Court judge said he accepted that the teenager was involved in criminal activity and was at least "on the periphery" of gang culture.
The court was previously told that the boy's parents, who are originally from Ghana, "did not want their son to be 'yet another black teenager stabbed to death in the streets of London'."
Mr Justice Hayden said that the boy's extended family in Ghana "have gone to great lengths to claim him as their own and to help him to settle in whatever way they can".
He concluded: "What S requires, at present, is the support and love of his family whilst he navigates the challenges of adolescence.
"Though it is perhaps counterintuitive, I consider that he is best placed to receive and absorb this support whilst living in Ghana.
"S has educational opportunities that he can choose to take up and expand. He is away from, what I consider are, the malign influences of the young men he has surrounded himself with."
In a statement following the ruling, the teenager's parents said: "This has been a really difficult time for us all.
"Our priority has always been protecting our son and our focus now is on moving forward as a family."
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