A mother in a child residency dispute has been ordered to wear an electronic tag of the kind used to monitor criminals.

The extraordinary family court ruling was made after she twice took her daughter abroad unlawfully. The court also ruled that she should be given a home detention curfew if she wanted to continue caring for the child.

Tagging and curfews could now be extended to hundreds of family court cases where mothers or fathers try to prevent access to children, parents’ groups and lawyers said yesterday.

The court’s decision to use an electronic tag came despite explicit opposition from ministers. They scrapped plans to include electronic tagging and curfews in residency cases in a Bill that came into force last December, calling it disproportional.

Details of the tagging and curfew order have now been published as guidance for judges and lawyers. It follows a residency dispute involving a girl who can be referred to only as “A”.

The mother has to a wear an electronic tag about the size of a wristwatch around her ankle. Police are alerted if she attempts to remove the tag or leaves the home without authorisation while caring for her daughter.

The girl’s Greek father, who lives in Britain, said he feared that her mother would take her out of Britain again unless safeguards were put in place. His daughter had been unlawfully taken abroad by her mother in 2007 and again last year but foreign courts ordered the girl to be returned home.

Mrs Justice Parker, one of Britain’s most senior women judges, told the High Court: “The mother says that she has no such intention [of taking her daughter abroad], but accepts that the father has a legitimate concern that needs to be allayed.

“The parties have now agreed that when the child is with the mother, the mother should be subject for the time being to a curfew supported by electronic tagging. On this basis, the parents have agreed that the child will spend substantial periods with each parent in the interim.”

Mrs Justice Parker said that some of the details of what would normally be a secret hearing could be published to provide guidance in other cases.

Anthony Douglas, chief executive, of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcas), which represents the interests of children in legal proceedings, said: “Tagging may help to protect children in a limited number of cases where abduction is a risk. It can offer a reassurance to the child’s other parent and a child themselves that a parent who potentially places them at risk is being checked and monitored on their behalf.”

The Judicial Communications Office said that only three tagging orders had been made in relation to family cases and this was the first one to be made public. “All such orders are made with the consent of the tagged party to maintain extensive contact in cases where it would previously have been denied,” a spokesman said.

MPs and peers on a committee that reviewed the Government’s planned law on contact arrangements opposed tagging, warning that it “could be particularly difficult for the children of the parent concerned”.

Margaret Hodge, then the children’s minister, said in her evidence to the committee in 2005: “We feel some concerns about the curfew facility because we do not want a disproportionate response to the breaching of the contact order and tagging feels, to us, disproportionate.”

She suggested the light-touch curfew orders, for example to ensure that a mother would be at home when a father came to collect his children on a Saturday morning. The Government, however, removed the tagging and curfew powers from its proposals later, admitting that it “would not be a proportionate response”.

Catherine Meyer, founder of Parents and Abducted Children Together, welcomed the use of tagging in cases where there was a risk that a child could be taken out of the country. Experts estimate that up to 3,000 children a year are unlawfully taken out of the country by a parents involved in residency disputes.

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