What legal steps can be taken to get a mentally handicapped adult child, who is a protected person in foreign legal proceedings, back 'home' if he has been abducted to Israel?

A special plea for his return can be made at the appropriate Israeli family court based on the recognition of foreign order/s for the return of the protected person or vulnerable adult.

Our law practice successfully represented the UK mother of a 21 year old mentally handicapped  daughter with autistic tendencies, epilepsy and challenging behaviour who lacked legal capacity in the UK and who had been abducted to Israel by her father. She was returned to the UK  within 7 weeks of legal proceedings being opened in Israel. A Habeas Corpus plea based on the recognition of the UK orders was filed on the mother's behalf. The judgment ordering the daughter's return was given by Tel Aviv Family Court in the Spring of 2010, and withstood two unsuccessful attempts by the father, who had applied for a stay of proceedings at the District and then the Supreme Court , to stall the implementation of the return order, prior to actually filing an appeal at the District Court.  He later withdrew his appeal at the District Court.

The daughter was  abducted by her  father who had acted to foil a residential placement based on a 'best interests' judgment by the High Court of Justice (Family Division) in London , which was not to  his liking.

As the daughter was over 16 the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction did not apply,although both Israel and the U.K. are bound by it. A Hague Convention dealing with  vulnerable adults does not apply to  abductions between Israel and the U.K., so that a legal lacuna (loophole) existed as to the appropriate legal steps to be taken.