Islamic State: Court reveals race to detain UK family

Asif Malik and Sara Kiran have four children

An unusual judgement from the family courts has revealed a race against time to stop a family heading to join so-called Islamic State.

The judgement, released by the High Court, details frantic efforts by authorities in the UK and Moldova to stop Asif Malik and Sara Kiran taking their four children into the Syrian warzone.

The account reveals how officials initially tried and failed to persuade the family to return voluntarily after they were apprehended.

Senior judge Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, said he had released the judgement because it was an example of the system working quickly to protect children.

In April, Asif Malik and Sara Kiran left their home in Slough, Berkshire, with their four children, who are aged between 20 months and seven years old.

They left without warning, crossed the English Channel at Dover and were heading south-east across the continent when police launched a public appeal.

Judges' intervention

Thames Valley Police warned the family could go to Syria - but publicly stressed they had no specific evidence they were joining the self-styled Islamic State.

On 20 April, Turkish police found the family and detained them - but after days of attempts to persuade the family to fly home voluntarily, senior judges were asked to intervene.

According to the judgement, early on 4 May, the family's local council, which is legally responsible for keeping children safe from harm, sought an urgent application to make the children wards of court.

As is usual in such circumstances, a duty judge heard the case by telephone.

In its submission, the council said: "On the basis of the information the police and South East Counter Terrorism Unit has been willing to share, there are reasonable grounds for believing that this family left Slough in order to join Islamic State in Syria.

"If that is right, the parents chose to expose their children to obvious risks."

'In flight'

British social workers were preparing to fly to Turkey to intervene, but it then emerged that Mr Malik and Mrs Kiran were planning to leave for Moldova. Why they chose Moldova remains unclear - although the small country lies across the Black Sea from Turkey.

"It appears that the family is… 'in flight' from the UK," the council's barrister told the judge.

"It does seem to us that in view of the parents' obvious refusal to return to the UK, a proportionate response is to seek their urgent co-operation with an assessment in order that their plans for the children may be clearer to us, and about which reasoned decisions may be taken."

Tracking Britain's jihadists

BBC News has compiled a database of people from the UK who have travelled to support or fight for jihadist organisations in Syria and Iraq. It includes the stories of:

• More than 30 who are reported to have died

• Those who have been convicted by the courts in England

• Many others we have established to be alive and active in Syria or Iraq

The judge made the children wards of court. But despite that order the family pressed on, prompting Phil Batson, the British ambassador in the capital Chisinau, to get involved.

By lunchtime, he and his team had an assurance from a top official in the Moldovan prime minister's office that its security forces would help the UK.

Knowing this could be the last chance to intervene, social services lawyers, sought a second court order to stop the family going any further once they had arrived in Moldova.

With less than an hour before the family were due to arrive in Moldova, Sir James Munby made a new order, formally asking Moldova to stop the family, while warning the parents they faced jail if they did not comply.

The judge added: "This is a case where all the evidence would strongly suggest that until they were stopped by the Turkish authorities these young children, who are, of course, completely under the control of their parents, were intended by their parents to go through the middle of a war zone."

By midnight, the family were in Moldovan detention - and their passports in the hands of British officials.

Mr Malik and Mrs Kiran were described as "completely co-operative" and the children "safe and well".

The family returned home on a flight the next day - and since then the children have remained wards of court while social workers work out the next steps.

Their passports remain under official lock and key.