Parents accused of ‘abandoning’ their 14-year-old son at a boarding school in Ghana over fears he was ‘joining a London gang’ can leave him there, a judge has ruled.

The teenager took his parents to court to try and return to his home in London, and claimed they ‘physically and emotionally abandoned’ him.

His parents suspected he became involved with a gang, but the boy’s lawyers described him as ‘very polite and articulate’ and a keen fan of football and cooking.

The boy, who cannot be named, contacted the British Consulate and a child welfare organisation after his parents enrolled him at the school and flew home to England without him.

They took him to the country under the lie they were going to care for an ill relative, and only bothered to pack just a few of his possessions.

The boy claims he is receiving ‘inadequate’ food and tuition at the school, and is being ‘mistreated’ while there.

However in a judgment today, 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’.

This is despite the court accepting the boy’s home was in London and his views ‘should be afforded significant weight’.

Barrister Amean Elgadhy, barrister at 4PB which represented the parties in the case, told Metro: ‘This case is interesting because in this instance, it was accepted that the boy’s home was in London, but they decided he should remain in Ghana anyway.

‘It highlights the very real risks of potential gang involvement in London, and it directly engages the tensions between the rights of the child and the views of the parents.’

The High court heard the boy had poor school attendance, was aggressive, susceptible to being groomed, an allegation of stealing phones, and worrying Snapchat conversations.

Rebecca Foulkes, for the boy’s father, said social workers had outlined that, before the boy left the UK, there was ‘difficulty in managing (his) behaviours and in trying to manage them the mother was using physical aggression on occasion to do so’.

Social workers had reported that he was frequently late to class, would sometimes stay out late and that his school claimed it had ‘suspicions about him engaging in criminal activities’ and made ‘observations of him in expensive clothes and possession of phones’.

Ms Foulkes said: ‘From the father’s perspective, there was a clear deterioration in his son’s behaviours with a move towards criminal behaviours.

‘There is no real acceptance from him of the risks to which he was exposing himself.’