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Judge rules teen can stay in B.C. and not return to U.S. in custody dispute

FILE - The B.C. Supreme Court has ruled a 16-year-old girl can stay with her father in Victoria and not return to her mother who was granted sole custody in Connecticut. File / Global News

The B.C. Supreme Court has ruled a 15-year-old girl will be allowed to stay with her father in B.C., despite being legally obliged to return to Connecticut with her mother.

According to court documents, the girl, who cannot be identified, was sexually abused while living with her mother in the U.S.

While her mother had sole custody, her father did have visitation rights enabling the girl to visit him in Victoria – but she refused to go home last year, as she found living in B.C. less damaging than returning to Connecticut where the court heard she was allegedly sexually abused by a cousin.

That abuse was alleged to have begun when she was nine years old.

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The judge ruled that as being nearly 16 years old, “she is of an age where she is entitled to make a decision about where and with which parent she lives.”

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