Case Summaries

Sir Jonathan Cohen gave judgment in relation to trust property which was agreed to be matrimonial following the conclusion of financial remedies proceedings.

In this case the President of the Family Division considered if the Court can make a parental order following a USA surrogacy arrangement where the child has already been adopted in the USA.

This case concerned the father’s application for the summary return of the parties 3 children, aged 11, 8 and 5, to Sweden.

This was an appeal heard by Sir Jonathan Cohen sitting in the High Court. Permission to appeal was granted by Hayden J and the appeal concerned an order made by a Recorder sitting at the Family Court. The order dismissed the mother’s application to relocate with the one child of the family to Germany (paragraph 1).

This was an appeal in respect of a purported agreement reached by parties at court to settle a father’s application for the return of the parties’ child to USA from England under the Hague Convention 1989. The Court of Appeal granted the mother’s appeal and set aside a court order that was purportedly made ‘by consent’.

HHJ Talbot allowed an appeal out of time against the judgment that followed a 4-day fact-finding hearing concerning domestic abuse in the context of a private child law dispute.

Following the Court of Appeal’s decision to set aside an order for the return of a child from England to America under the 1980 Hague Convention, the father’s application was remitted to court for determination.

This is a decision of Mr Justice Cobb following a final hearing relating to the father’s application for the return of the parties’ two children to Germany under the inherent jurisdiction.

In this recent case, the Court of Appeal allowed the mother’s appeal against a care order made in respect of her infant son, J. Baker LJ gave the leading judgment, with which Lewison and Andrews LJJ agreed.

In this case Williams J considered the application of a mother who sought the summary return of three children from England to Israel.  The judgment was published in March 2024.

Mr Justice Moor considered an application for the committal to prison of a Respondent husband following breaches of orders in financial remedies proceedings.

These were proceedings that concerned 4 children, aged between 4 and 15.

The Court of Appeal heard an appeal by a local authority and found itself ‘confronted again with a case in which problems have arisen as a result of requests by the parties for clarification of the reasons given by the judge for her findings at the end of a lengthy fact-finding hearing’.

Henke J delivered a welfare judgment determining which parent a child (“U”) would live with.

In this judgement, Mr Justice Peel had to balance the very real risk the Mother posed as a potentially violent person against the Mother’s fundamental right to have access to justice in proceedings affecting her and the children profoundly. 

This was a contested final hearing in respect of the applicant’s application pursuant to the 1980 Hague Convention for a return of a child, referred to as ‘PZ’ to New Zealand.