Case Summaries

An appeal by H from financial remedies order in divorce.

A warning that criticisms from the court and consequential sanctions may be imposed where unnecessary private law applications are brought before the Family Court.

Mrs Justice Knowles granted the father’s appeal against an order allowing a mother to remove two young girls to relocate permanently to Hong Kong, finding that the judge had failed to conduct a welfare analysis of the available options or a proportionality assessment.

Successful appeal against findings made in private law proceedings that a father had poisoned the mother and her parents, killing the maternal grandfather. The court must be mindful of the fallibility of memory and the pressures of giving evidence.

The court considered the interplay between obligations of the state under the 1980 Hague Convention and under immigration law including the 1951 Geneva Convention.

This is an appeal on behalf of J against the decision of HHJ Howells to permit the local authority to withdraw three admissions of liability it made to J in civil proceedings in which breach of duty was alleged on account of the local authority’s alleged failure to remove him from the care of his mother and her foster parents and place him for adoption in the first months of his life.

A financial remedies case taking into consideration the value of a business which will be affected by a no-deal Brexit, COVID-19 and the husband having set up a rival company.

Use of inherent jurisdiction to authorise a placement involving a deprivation of liberty when one or more of the relevant criteria under s25 of the Children Act 1989 are not satisfied

The court has the power, under the 1980 Convention, to order return to a state other than the state of the child’s habitual residence at the relevant date of the alleged wrongful removal or retention.

The case involved an appeal by a father in relation to an order made in private law proceedings restricting his contact to indirect only and restricting his exercise of parental responsibility.

Consultation ends on 30 September 2020

Mr Darren Howe QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge granted a stay of a return order made in Hague Convention proceedings after an asylum application is made on behalf of the child and considered whether the father should be ordered to file a statement giving information about the grounds on which asylum is claimed. The judge also considered whether the Covid-19 regulations permit a parent subject to compulsory quarantine on arrival in the UK to have contact with the child.

Cobb J gave judgement in a dispute between a former cohabiting couple concerning the ownership of the shares in a company which owned the family home. The Claimant had also made a claim under Schedule 1 Children Act 1989 in the alternative.

This is a judgment concerning three children, A (10), B (8) and C (2). D, their brother, tragically died on 13th March 2019. He was two months old. A fact-finding hearing was listed to establish the cause of D’s death and the circumstances in which he sustained multiple rib fractures.

An appeal from a return order in a Hague case to consider where a child is habitually resident.

A deputy High Court judge’s refusal to set aside a return order made under the 1980 Hague Convention was successfully appealed. The Court of Appeal found that the Article 13(b) threshold of grave risk of harm or intolerability was met, determining that this was a case in which permission should have been given for further medical evidence to be obtained when the mother first applied.