‘New family court guidance to protect children from violent parents during custody disputes is “lifesaving,” domestic violence campaigners say.’
BBC News, 29th September 2017
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘Maria Wright, PhD Student at the University of Bristol, addresses how courts must now approach Article 15 transfers of public law proceedings in the light of CJEU and Supreme Court judgments.’
Family Law Week, 9th August 2017
Source: www.familylawweek.co.uk
‘Judge writes to teenager to explain why he can’t live with his father.’
Daily Telegraph, 27th July 2017
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
F v L (Child Arrangements Order: Relocation)[2017] EWHC 1377 (Fam)
‘The mother, an Italian national, sought a child arrangements order (“CAO”) under section 8 of the Children Act 1989, as amended, in respect of the child, aged five, and permission to relocate with him to Italy, alleging serious domestic abuse by the father. The Italian father opposed the application for relocation and cross-applied for a shared care CAO. Despite the recommendation in the report prepared by the CAFCASS officer that the child’s main carer be his mother and that she should be given permission to relocate to Italy, the trial judge decided not to consider or make any finding in respect of the abuse allegations, refused the mother’s application to relocate and ordered the continuance of the shared care regime. The mother appealed on the grounds, inter alia, that the trial judge had made a fundamental procedural error in failing to resolve the issue of the future care of the child prior to considering the application for relocation and had failed to make findings on the abuse allegations.’
WLR Daily, 9th June 2017
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘Desperate parents are increasingly resorting to filming or recording their children in an attempt to win custody in bitter divorce cases, lawyers have said.’
Daily Telegraph, 8th April 2017
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
‘The last five years have brought important reforms to care proceedings. The Judiciary made proposals for modernising family justice with a focus on strong judicial leadership, judicial continuity and better case management.2 The Family Justice Review3 recommended that the duration of care proceedings should be limited to 26 weeks, that fewer experts should be instructed in proceedings and there should be more limited scrutiny of the care plan, with the court considering only the plan for permanency (care by the parents(s), placement in the extended family, long-term fostering, or adoption) and not matters such as services for the child and contact arrangements. The Review’s recommendations were enacted in the Children and Families Act 2014, supplemented by new procedural rules (the PLO 2014) and implemented on April 22, 2014. This date also marked the opening of the Family Court, replacing the triple jurisdiction of the Family Proceedings Court, the County Court and the High Court. ‘
Family Law Week, 17th February 2017
Source: www.familylawweek.co.uk
‘Two parents fighting legal battles for custody of their children paid thousands of pounds to a company providing “McKenzie friends” – people with no legal training who assist in court. But they were badly let down.’
BBC News, 13th February 2017
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘A Muslim couple arrested over fears that they were heading to Syria for “extremist activities” have won a court fight for the care of their children.’
BBC News, 11th December 2016
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘Parents of transgender children fear their ex-partners will sue them for custody of their children after the high court ruled that a seven-year-old child who identified as transgender should be removed from the care of their mother.’
The Guardian, 22nd November 2016
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘The number of children held in youth prisons who feel unsafe has risen significantly in recent years, an official report has warned.’
The Independent, 15th November 2016
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘People suffering a mental health crisis should never be held in police cells as they find it terrifying and become even more unwell, ministers will be told.’
The Guardian, 16th November 2016
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘The parents of four children, two girls now aged 16 and 14 and two boys aged 12 and 6 years old, were married in Afghanistan in 1999 and came to the United Kingdom in 2000. They were all now British citizens. From 2011 the family experienced growing disagreement between the parents, and in 2012 the father married a second woman in secret which his wife did not know about until 2014. Following a number of incidents that year in which the police had sometimes been involved the father changed the locks to the marital home, the upshot being that the mother went to alternative accommodation with the three eldest children and the youngest boy stayed with the father and his second wife. By September 2014 the relationship between the parents had broken down. Proceedings in the case had been conducted before a High Court judge over some 14 hearings. At the first main fact-finding hearing in early 2015 in respect of child placement arrangements the judge made adverse findings against the mother including that she had caused the three older children emotional harm by her negative comments and outbursts against the father, that none of the mother’s allegations against the father justified ceasing contact between them and their father, and that the judge’s concern was to restore their relationship despite the mother’s resistance to contact between them and the father. The appointment of an expert psychiatrist from a well-known child health clinic was agreed between the parties to make an assessment of the family and also to offer therapy. The expert was able to achieve meetings between the three older children and the father, but unsupervised contact between the youngest child and the mother was not achieved until early 2016. At the latter contact session with the mother the child’s fringe was found to have been cut in a rough and ready manner. Each party blamed the other for the incident. It also emerged that the father had concealed a device on the child which recorded the conversation between the mother and the child. That showed that the mother had asked whether there was a new baby in the father’s house. At the welfare hearing in March 2016 the judge had four full reports from the expert who was also present and had made some recommendations, there was no CAFCASS officer’s report, the judge made further adverse findings against the mother including that she had cut the child’s hair, that she had assaulted the father and was unlikely to change her attitude towards him or that she would promote a positive relationship between the father and the three older children, that none of her allegations against the father had been proved, that at an earlier stage he had found that the three children had had an enjoyable holiday with the father in Barcelona but that they now refused to live with him because of the emotional harm caused by the mother’s attitude, and he concluded that the father was committed to the children, that the second wife was a force for good, that he was minded to order that all the children should live with the father but in the event only the older boy was ordered to reside with the father and the boy’s younger brother, noting that such an arrangement was contrary to the ordinary course for siblings to be in the same household. The mother appealed, contending that the welfare analysis was insufficient, that the older children’s wishes and feelings had not been properly considered and that a guardian should be appointed for their separate representation’
WLR Daily, 20th October 2016
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
McPhee v The Queen [2016] UKPC 29
‘The defendant, a 17-year-old from Nassau, was arrested on a neighbouring island of The Bahamas on suspicion of murder following an armed robbery. He gave his mother’s phone number in Nassau to the police but no contact with her was established and no lawyer was called. After more than 31 hours in custody, during which time the custody log showed he had been taken from his cell several times but without any record made of his being questioned, a church minister in his mid-seventies was asked to come to the police station to witness the defendant make a statement. The minister did not speak to the defendant alone nor offer him any advice, but observed that the defendant was hungry and gave the police money to buy him a meal, after which the defendant made a written statement under caution confessing to the murder. Apart from the confession the only evidence against the defendant was that of another defendant who became a prosecution witness during the trial. At trial, the defendant claimed that his statement had been made following torture and so was not admissible. The judge rejected the claim of torture but did not consider whether the taking of the defendant from his cells had been for the purpose of informal interrogation, or whether the minister could properly be said to have been acting as an “appropriate adult” for the witnessing of a juvenile’s confession, and allowed the confession to go before the jury. The defendant was convicted of murder. The conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. The defendant appealed to the Privy Council on the grounds, inter alia, that the confession should have been excluded under section 20 of the Bahamas Evidence Act as being unreliable, by reason of the defendant having been subjected to unrecorded questioning in the absence of a lawyer or appropriate adult and in any event should have been excluded as unfair under section 178 of the Bahamas Evidence Act.’
WLR Daily, 24th October 2016
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘Jennifer Kotilaine, Pauline Troy, Emma Romer and Eilidh Gardner, all barristers at 42 Bedford Row, consider the family law implications for the Archer family following Helen’s much-publicised acquittal in the criminal court.’
Family law Week, 21st September 2016
Source: www.familylawweek.co.uk
In re W (Children) (Child Arrangements Orders: Non-molestation Orders):[2016] EWHC 2226 (Fam)
‘The parties married in Russia in September 2010 and came to live in London in August 2014. In June 2016, following the breakdown of the marriage, the father issued applications in the High Court, inter alia, for orders under the court’s inherent powers to locate his step-son, A, aged ten and his son, J, aged two, a prohibited steps order preventing their removal from the jurisdiction and a request to the Russian Embassy and the British Passport Office that no further passports be issued until further order of the court. Location and passport orders were made and the children located. Meanwhile, on 19 July 2016 the mother sought and was granted an ex parte non-molestation order against the father by a district judge in the family court. The order stated that it was to endure until 19 July 2017 and that the order would be considered at a further hearing on a date to be fixed by the court officer on request by the respondent father. The father issued further applications in the family court for child arrangement orders in respect of the children.’
WLR Daily, 10th August 2016
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘It is the kind of document in which one might expect to find daunting legal terminology, interspersed with Latin phrases or even a smattering of Norman French.But one High Court judge has gone to previously unheard-of lengths to make a judgment in a family court case comprehensible even for the children it affects – by replacing dry terminology with a battery of down-to-earth phrases and even a smiley face symbol.’
Daily Telegraph, 14th September 2016
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
‘A separated couple called their three-year-old daughter different names, a family court judge has heard.’
The Independent, 30th August 2016
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The grandfather of murdered six-year-old Ellie Butler has condemned the legal aid granted to her killer father, amid reports the taxpayer picked up a bill of more than £1.5m for his legal expenses.’
The Guardian, 6th August 2016
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘In litigation in Romania concerning the care and custody of a 10 year-old child born to Romanian parents who had lived most of his life with his mother in England, the Bucharest Court of Appeal awarded custody of the child to his father. The father obtained an order in the High Court for recognition and registration of that decision under article 21(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and matters of parental responsibility. The mother appealed to a High Court judge pursuant to article 33 of the Regulation. The judge, allowing the appeal, refused recognition of the Romanian court order under article 23(b) on the ground that the order had been made without the child having been given an opportunity to be heard. The father, having unsuccessfully appealed to the Court of Appeal, obtained leave for a further appeal to the Supreme Court. Upon the mother challenging the father’s right to a further appeal, the Supreme Court convened a preliminary hearing to determine whether it had jurisdiction to proceed with the appeal.’
WLR Daily, 29th June 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘Katy Chokowry and Nicholas Anderson, barristers of 1 King’s Bench Walk, explain the rationale of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Re D (A Child) and consider the lessons that survive form the Court of Appeal’s judgment.’
Family Law Week, 30th June 2016
Source: www.familylawweek.co.uk
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