DUP MP asks Starmer to help get Northern Irish toddler returned from Lebanon

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he will ensure meetings take place with ministers to help return a Northern Irish toddler to his mother, after his father in Lebanon ignored a court order to give him back.

Gavin Robinson, DUP MP for Belfast East, said Catherine Flanagan had fled domestic violence in Beirut to come to the UK, but her son, David Nahle, is still in Lebanon despite a court order telling his father to return him to the UK.

UTV has previously reported that Ms Flanagan had gone to Lebanon with David and his father in August 2022 to see family there. While she was in the country, her then-partner demanded she stay in Lebanon with him.

He told Ms Flanagan that if she left Lebanon peacefully, David would be returned to Northern Ireland.

However he then kept the youngster in Lebanon.

She has not received the assistance that she, or I, and our community expect she should

Since then, Israel has attacked Lebanon as part of its conflict with the Hezbollah group, which has included air strikes on the country’s capital, Beirut.

Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Robinson said: “Lebanon is in crisis and my constituent, Catherine Flanagan, is in despair. Her three-year-old son, David Nahle, has been out of her care for the last two years.

“The Belfast High Court has indicated that he should be returned to his mother and they have issued a bench warrant for the arrest of his father. But when she fled domestic violence in Beirut, she got no help or assistance from the UK embassy.

“When she has sought help from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to be returned (sic) with her son, to see her son again, and this British citizen come back to the UK, she has not received the assistance that she or I and our community expect she should.

“Can I ask the Prime Minister to engage in this issue and at the very least ask the Foreign Secretary to assist my constituent in her earnest desire to see her three-year-old son again?”

In 2023 the High Court in Belfast ruled that David should be returned to Northern Ireland. He was due to be handed over on, or before, 5pm on August 18 in the same year. It never happened.

Ms Flanagan then travelled to Lebanon in January this year in an attempt to get her son back.

She has previously told the BBC that, when she was there, she was not allowed to go out with David or be in the same room as her son.

Sir Keir told the Commons: “Can I thank (Mr Robinson) for raising this case and for all that he’s doing on behalf of Catherine and David. I hope they get some comfort from knowing they’ve got an MP working so hard on their behalf.

“It is, I know, a complex, a difficult, situation, but of course I will make sure that the relevant meetings are set up with the relevant ministers to ensure that he gets the answers that he needs, on behalf of his constituents.”