Welcome to the Roundup, where we correct, clarify and comment on the previous month’s media reports of family law, explain and comment on published family court judgments, and highlight other recent transparency news.
MEDIA COVERAGE OF FAMILY LAW, TRANSPARENCY etc
The Times (£) began the year with an article titled: Planning to divorce? Don’t expect to split until 2026 (5 Jan 2025) offering a word of caution to all the new matrimonial clients supposedly prompted to sign up on ‘D-day’: ‘ The first Monday of the year is usually the busiest for divorce lawyers, who experience a spike in inquiries. But anyone planning to separate should not expect the process to complete until at least 2026, experts say.’ It points out that ‘While the no-fault system can help couples to avoid costly legal exchanges over the separation itself, delays can be caused by disputes over finances and maintenance arrangements’.
The BBC reported Starmer attacks those ‘spreading lies’ on grooming gangs (6 Jan 2025) after tech billionaire and Trump supporter Elon Musk accused Sir Keir Starmer of being ‘complicit in the rape of Britain’ for failing to tackle the sexual abuse of minors by ‘grooming gangs’ of male predators when director of public prosecutions (DPP) between 2008 and 2013. The tech-entrepreneur also used the social media site X (formerly Twitter, which he bought in 2022) to accuse Labour MP Jess Phillips of being a ‘rape genocide apologist’ after it was reported that Phillips had rejected Oldham Council’s request for a government-led inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation in the town, in favour of a locally-led investigation. These ill-informed slurs, echoed by Reform and some conservatives in the UK, stoked a media frenzy for a couple of weeks, resulting in various calls for a new national inquiry, or perhaps for the government to implement the recommendations of various inquiries which had already happened, including the seven-year Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) chaired by Professor Alexis Jay. That inquiry report had made 20 recommendations, as the BBC explained in The 20 child abuse inquiry proposals – what has happened so far? (9 Jan 2025), one of which the government announced it would now be implementing: see The Times (£) Failure to report child sex abuse to be made a crime (7 Jan 2025). Yet, for all the fuss, said the Times investigative journalist Andrew Norfolk, who had first revealed the grooming gang scandal in 2011, We still don’t know cause of grooming gangs, says scandal reporter (7 Jan 2025). Things finally calmed down after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announces inquiries into grooming gangs (16 Jan 2025).
Right to Equality continued its a three-part series by Ruth Green describing ‘A week in Manchester’s Family Court’, which had begun with Part One – Behind Closed Doors (21 Dec 2024), with Part Two (13 Jan 2025) and then Part 3 (20 Jan 2025). She explains how opening up the courts to greater scrutiny, originally under the Reporting Pilot, will help dispel some of the myths which fuel suspicion and protests outside court. While many of those myths may be unfounded, ‘there are, undeniably, instances where family court decisions have had detrimental, life-changing consequences’.
The Times (£) reported that Nurse beats attempt to gag tribunal reporting amid trans row (7 Jan 2025). This concerned a complaint by the nurse to an industrial tribunal in Scotland, about being required to share a changing room with a trans woman, which she said amounted to harassment, and about her subsequent suspension following her complaint. In advance of the substantive hearing, the health board and the trans woman had applied for the case to be heard in private and the names of those involved and the hospital department where they worked to be kept secret. The nurse was supported by various media organisations in opposing that application, which the tribunal rejected. Judge Antoine Tinnion held that there was a legitimate public interest in the case and ordered that all proceedings be public and that the parties be named.
The Financial Times (£) reported that Rich opt out of English courts for private divorces (10 Jan 2025) saying that ‘Thanks to intense delays in waiting for court appointments and unwanted publicity once they get them’, wealthy couples splitting up are increasingly turning to arbitration as a streamlined alternative to the overburdened traditional court route. The article cites increasing transparency as one of the factors driving the rush to private arbitration; but perhaps they are doing the courts a favour, given the amount of other cases they could be getting on with.
The Law Gazette reported that Government announces reprieve for archive of historic wills (10 Jan 2025) with the good news that the Ministry of Justice had dropped plans to replace archived will documents dating back hundreds of years with digital copies in most cases, in order to save storage costs. The original proposal had been only to archive paper originals of those wills relating to the estates of famous historical figures, without considering who might later become famous or what kind of research into non-famous persons future generations might wish to carry out. (Paper is, after all, the most durable storage medium.) Not surprisingly, there were howls of protest from historians and archivists, describing the plan as ‘sheer vandalism’. Justice minister Sarah Sackman KC admitted that, in the public consultation, ‘Thousands of people expressed their fierce opposition to the previous government’s proposal to destroy millions of historic wills, some dating back to the 1850s.’
See also Ministry of Justice, Storage and retention of original will documents (original proposals) and Consultation response.
The Financial Times (£) commented on The race to stop ‘predatory marriage’ in old age (11 Jan 2025), explaining that ‘A marriage or civil partnership immediately revokes almost any previous will. Without need of a new will, marriage creates a fresh financial settlement — one which normally leaves a lot, if not everything, to the new spouse’. This in turn provides incentives for vulnerable people to come under undue influence to enter into what has come to be called ‘predatory marriage’, leading, on their death, to former heirs or beneficiaries being cut out of their estate. While such fears have always existed, the article suggested the risk had increased during the covid pandemic, when will-writing was carried out (if at all) in ‘difficult if not chaotic’ conditions. It referred to the 2023 Law Commission supplementary consultation on the law of Wills, one of whose proposals related to the revocation of wills by marriage or civil partnership.
The Standard reported that Crisis in courts has opened the door to secret justice (11 Jan 2025). This was a powerful piece by courts correspondent Tristan Kirk on the ever-increasing use of the Single Justice Procedure to fast-track low level criminal cases. The SJP now takes in around 800,000 cases each year. ‘It is a system essentially built on implicit trust, as the public are excluded and not offered the chance to scrutinise the decisions of magistrates.’ He describes how ‘Dementia patients, care home residents, people with cancer, and families who lost loved ones have been harshly pursued over unpaid bills during the darkest periods of their lives’. It is, he says, ‘a justice system mired in crisis, beset by delays and backlogs, and increasingly turning to secretive hearings to try to steady the ship’. Although justice minister Heidi Alexander MP had promised reform of the system, she has since been moved to a different ministry, so ‘while the government insists reforms remain on the table, it will be up to a new minister to take up the reins’.
The Times (£) had a piece, Family courts must not let themselves be used as tools of abuse (16 Jan 2025) in which Judith Murray KC pointed out the risk of certain litigants exploiting the court process to further abuse their partners, financially or emotionally, and that the courts should be astute to detect and avoid such abuse. The article seemed mainly focused on financial remedy proceedings and referred to, but did not properly cite or link to, a Resolution report from last October. We think it must be this one: Domestic abuse in financial remedy proceedings (October 2024) (which we covered in our October roundup).
The BBC reported that Tycoon’s ex-wife awarded £43.5m in divorce payment (17 Jan 2025) concluding the saga about Dale Vince’s big money divorce, which seems to have been occupying the media’s attention (and presumably the court’s resources) for some time. The Times also had a piece, entitled Labour donor Dale Vince says £43.5m divorce bill is total vindication (£).
The BBC reported £20,000 offered in search for parents of three abandoned babies (18 Jan 2025) about a new appeal for information relating to three babies abandoned by the same parents shortly after birth in east London, the latest of which was ‘Baby Elsa’ who was found abandoned in a park there a year ago. Newham Children’s Services has taken her into care and there have been nine hearings so far before the senior judge in East London Family Court, Carol Atkinson. The older children have been adopted, and that is Newham Children’s Services’ plan for Elsa too. She is currently said to be doing well in foster care.
The Sunday Times (£) reported from Inside the special courts where mothers get another chance to keep their children (19 Jan 2025) about the resource-intensive but highly effective work of the Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDAC). The programme, it said, ‘is sporadic around the country’: judges at a recent FDAC conference said the scheme remained ‘worryingly small’, available to ‘only 2 per cent of children in care cases’. The report describes cases heard at Birmingham Civil and Family Justice Centre, saying judges there had, ‘at their discretion’, granted transparency orders ‘allowing us to report on their informal “non-lawyer reviews” with parents, albeit without identifying them or their children’.
Local Government Lawyer reported Family Court judge criticises local authority analysis as “deeply flawed”, finding council failed to apply ‘nothing else will do’ principle (22 Jan 2025). This was based on a judgment of HHJ Hickinbottom from November which had recently appeared on BAILII, in the case of Re D (A child) [2024] EWFC 396 (B). The local authority was City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, who the judge found had failed to apply the relevant welfare checklist. She refused the care and placement orders it sought, saying: “I am satisfied having weighed all the relevant factors that the making of [the] orders is neither necessary nor proportionate”. (See judgments below)
The BBC reported that Mum who left sons home alone jailed for fire deaths (24 Jan 2025). This concerned the case of Deveca Rose, 30, who had left her four young children alone while visiting local shops, when a fire ripped through their terraced house in Sutton, south-west London, on 16 December 2021. None of the children survived. She was found guilty of four counts of manslaughter following a trial at the Old Bailey last autumn, and has now been jailed for ten years. The sentencing remarks of Judge Mark Lucraft KC were published on the Judiciary website.
The Observer had a piece, ‘I can’t sleep, I’m terrified’: the rise in mothers having their babies taken away within days of giving birth in England (25 Jan 2025) based on a recent analysis by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (NFJO). This showed that in 2022-23 nearly 3,000 newborn babies were subject to care proceedings in England, an increase of nearly 20% since 2012-13. Yet ‘experts and lawyers argue that earlier intervention and better support from a range of overstretched and underfunded services would have made it possible for many of these babies to remain with their mothers’. The article cites other sources criticising the ‘inhumane’ practice of urgent intervention, which sometimes appears to be a panic response from over-anxious local authorities.
The Observer reported that Our challenge to the ban on naming Sara Sharif judges was always about scrutiny, not blame (26 Jan 2025) in which Louise Tickle and Hannah Summers explained, after the Court of Appeal’s judgment in their favour, why they had appealed against the decision to anonymise the judges involved in earlier family proceedings in the Sara Sharif case. ‘It is a cornerstone of open justice that the names of judges – from magistrates up to supreme court justices – are known to the public in respect of the weighty and life-changing decisions they make.’ The Court of Appeal’s decision, allowing the judges’ names to be published (after a week’s delay) was widely covered in the media, and also on this blog:
- Sharif judges anonymity: the appeal coverage
- Court of Appeal says judges’ names should not be anonymised
- Identification of judges in Sara Sharif family court history
The Daily Mail reported Father is accused of googling ‘how to make a child disabled’ in bid to give his newborn son brain damage and claim more benefits in family court case (29 Jan 2025) in which reporter Charlie Moloney covered a family court case during what he described as ‘the first day of an extended transparency project which has allowed journalists to report on every family court for the first time’. (As with other news reporting, there appears to be some confusion over what to call the Reporting Pilot.) The report covered part of a fact-finding hearing to determine whether the ‘threshold criteria’ [under s 31 of the Children Act 1989] were met. It concerned allegations of non-accidental injury to a baby.
The Times (£) reported that Assisted dying bill may drop need for High Court judge’s approval (29 Jan 2025), saying that ‘under plans being examined by MPs who support a change in the law to let people end their own life, a panel of experts, rather than a High Court judge, would decide whether to approve an assisted death’. Such a panel of experts ‘could include a retired judge as well as social workers and psychiatrists’, the article said, while the existing requirement for judicial approval would impose too large a burden on court resources. The article cites Sir James Munby and Sir Nicholas Mostyn as among the retired judges who have voiced their concerns. But the article goes on to note that a number of the Bill’s original supporters only did so on the basis there would be such oversight.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) published its undercover report, Psychologist’s ‘alarming’ views on domestic abuse throw spotlight on family court experts (30 Jan 2025) alongside a podcast on the same subject (see below), exposing the unregulated psychologist, Melanie Gill, who specialises in the contested concept of ‘parental alienation’ and whose advice ‘has been pivotal in the removal of at least a dozen children from their mothers’ care’.
The Times (£) had a piece, Inside the UK’s family courts: frustration, tears and long delays, (31 Jan 2025) recording the week reporter Sian Bradley spent covering family courts in West London and Birmingham in November 2024 under the Reporting Pilot. She conveys a good sense of the variety of cases and the problems they present, how the legal professionals and often unrepresented litigants respond to the presence of a reporter, and the pressures under which the family courts operate.
At the end of the month, the BBC (27 January) explained that the Reporting Pilot had now become a permanent rule change across England and Wales, Press now allowed to report from family courts. BBC Wales (3 February) featured the extension of the Pathfinder Pilot in private law to cover the whole of Wales and, in England, to Birmingham, Family court pilot to support abuse victims expanded.
BROADCAST & AUDIO COVERAGE
Channel 4 News featured an interview with Louise Tickle and Hannah Summers after the Court of Appeal had allowed their appeal (see above) in the Sharif judge anonymisation case: Judges ‘need to be held to account’, says journalist who challenged naming ban (24 Jan 2025)
The Slow Newscast from Tortoise had a podcast, Goodbye mum: the ruthless fight for child custody (30 Jan 2025) presented by Louise and Hannah about the contested concept of parental alienation, and how some unregulated so-called experts are using it to advance a biased agenda in court cases involving child arrangements and contact. The practice can result in decisions that blight the future of the children affected. Using undercover evidence, the reporters expose some of the self-appointed experts, including Melanie Gill, who later admitted that her captured conversation with a putative client had ‘not been her finest hour’.
LEGAL BLOGGING
In a two-part post on this blog, Injuries to a baby: Part 1 – a mystery to be solved by the family court and Part 2 – the court’s decisions, Julie Doughty explained how she had attended 10 of the 11 hearings held in a case about a baby’s potentially non-accidental injuries over a 12-month period, as a legal blogger, including a nine-day fact-finding hearing, and then been able to report on the outcome in accordance with the Transparency Order. The second post includes observations about the experience of legal blogging the case.
The other important bit of legal blogging we did this month was a team effort, mainly by Paul Magrath and Lucy Reed, with support from other members of the Transparency Project, covering the appeal hearing in the Sharif judge anonymisation case, live blogging on our BlueSky account @seethrujustice.transparencyproject.org.uk. As legal bloggers we had managed to gain access to the skeleton arguments that were before the court, which helped us make sense of what the lawyers and judges were saying, and to make our posts more informative. On day two, Lucy and Paul were both in court, so able to hand over the baton quite easily, but on day one Lucy was watching the remote video feed while Paul was in court in person, and using the Transparency Project internal WhatsApp to keep in touch, share links and files, and trying to make sure we didn’t drop the thread as we took turns to add further posts. Given the latency between the live action and the remote feed, this was tricky, but we managed not to drop too many stitches. We hope in due course to write in more detail about the background to the underlying family proceedings in the Sharif case, now that we have access to many of the court documents.
NEW JUDGMENTS OF INTEREST
Re X & Anor (Children: Adoption Order: Setting Aside) [2025] EWCA Civ 2
This is a significant judgment because it resolves an apparent conflict that had arisen between two High Court judges relating to the emotive issue of whether it is possible to set aside an adoption order after the order has been made. Adoption legislation sets out detailed processes to be followed if a parent is trying to stop an adoption going ahead and there is a good deal of case law clarifying how this works. Law and policy are however clear that a valid adoption order, once made, must be permanent. Sadly, occasionally adoption is not successful when children become older and they themselves may wish to ‘undo’ the order. In a situation where everyone agrees that it would be in the children’s best interests to return to their birth family and no longer have the status of an adopted child, a way around the strict rule may appear to be to ask the High Court to exercise its inherent jurisdiction (powers to protect children where there appear to be gaps in the law) to set aside the adoption order.
This judgment is on an appeal from a High Court decision by Mrs Justice Lieven, Re X and Y (Revocation of Adoption Orders) [2024] EWHC 1059 (Fam), where she concluded that she could find no powers under the inherent jurisdiction to set aside a valid adoption order. However, in AX v BX (Revocation of Adoption Order) [2021] EWHC 1121 (Fam), Mrs Justice Theis had concluded that the identity rights of the children under Article 8 meant that ‘compelling highly exceptional and particular circumstances’ supported revocation of the adoption orders. The Court of Appeal upheld the decision by Lieven J in X and Y, saying that all of the previously decided cases firmly held that there was no jurisdiction for the High Court to set aside a validly made adoption order. The judgment itself is useful in summarising all the relevant case law.
R (on behalf of TW) v Essex County Council [2025] EWCA Civ 4
This Court of Appeal judgment adds to the authorities on the definitions of a ‘child in need’ and a ‘looked after’ child in the Children Act 1989 and the consequent responsibilities of a local authority when the child turns 18. Although the young person in question had been receiving some help from the local authority between the ages of 14 and 16, including a referral to a housing partnership, the totality of the evidence of assessments and management decisions not to treat him as a child in need under section 17 were in accordance with guidance and were not deemed irrational by the court. The applicant therefore did not meet the definition of a ‘former relevant child’ entitled to post-18 support.
Re L-G (Risk assessment) [2025] EWCA Civ 69
This case involved two small children whose mother’s care was excellent but unfortunately the father of the younger child was known to be violent and cruel. The risks to the children arose from the possibility of their mother continuing a relationship with him. The evidence and the judgment in Canterbury Family Court had all become very complicated and the grounds before the Court of Appeal were a lack of risk assessment; incomplete findings of fact; and procedural errors. The family court decision had been that the older child live with her father and the younger child with his maternal grandfather. The Court of Appeal ruled that both children return to their mother under supervision orders while a full risk assessment was undertaken. It is perhaps unusual for a single issue case like this to reach the Court of Appeal.
Siton v Morrison [2025] EWFC 2 (B)
This was a committal for contempt of court for breaching an occupation order regarding the former matrimonial home under the Family Law Act 1996. In this case heard at Watford Family Court, the husband had breached an order allowing occupation by his wife and four children by not paying the mortgage and removing all the white goods (oven etc.) and the water tank. HHJ Richard Clarke said that it was clear the husband was not going to comply with an order to return these unless he was forced to, and so he was sentenced to imprisonment for three months.
AB v CD (Child Arrangements Orders: Children over 16) [2025] EWFC 12 (B)
This is a reassuringly child focused judgment by HHJ Robertson at the Central London family court, taking careful note of the children’s expressed wishes and feelings and praising the evidence of the local authority social worker who completed a section 7 report. There had been a history of significant abuse by the father, who then had attended a 30 week ‘building better relationships’ course but the s 7 report did not agree with positive feedback given by the course facilitator. The judge agreed that the father had shown no insight into the effects of his behaviour. A range of child arrangements orders were made to continue to protect the children and their mother.
Re T and G (allegations of alienating behaviours) [2025] EWFC 15 (B)
This is a thoughtful judgement from DJ Cockayne at Dudley Family Court in which she considers the most recent guidance and case law on ‘alienation’. The judge did not agree with the Cafcass report that there had been alienating behaviour by a parent nor did she agree with a recommendation for a transfer of residence. Although this judgment is fact specific, it is a helpful indicator of the more modern judicial approach. It’s also good to see the suggestions made by the judge for future support of the family being accepted by Cafcass and the local authority.
Re F (a child; future welfare; post adoption contact; unconscionable delay) [2025] EWFC 13
The issues in this judgment by High Court judge, Ms Justice Henke, are conveniently highlighted in its case name. The child subject to the applications was aged 4 ½ and had experienced 8 different placements. Delays appear to have been due to a combination of poor case management by the court and unnecessary repeat assessments by social workers. The judge makes a point of approving an adoption plan that will include direct contact between the child and her birth mother, and concludes that a section 26 contact order is not necessary.
HHJ Marin analyses current law and policy on post-adoption contact and is critical of failures by Southwark Council to address contact planning or undertake life story work with a four year old child.
TO v GA (financial remedies; deferred house sale) [2024] EWFC 405 (B)
DJ Mark Harrop at Luton Family Court explains that the outset of this judgment that he believes it to be a fairly typical financial remedies case and that publication may help with the general push toward more transparency in how these cases are resolved. He says that the parties have agreed to publication and that he has decided on balance that they should be anonymized. Unsurprisingly, most of the judgement is taken up with consideration of the respective parties’ housing needs. The couple had five children and the mother was still caring for three of these in the former matrimonial home but she was trying hard to find full time work to be in a position to buy out the husband’s share in due course. We very much welcome publication of this type of judgement to help other families understand how such decisions are made by the courts.
MacQueen v MacQueen [2024] EWFC 400 (B)
In contrast to TO v VGA above, DJ Ashby in Bournemouth Family Court decided in this case not to anonymise the parties because of the extreme behaviour by the husband in consistently lying to and misleading the court about his financial position. The judge described this as perhaps the worst example of active and continual dishonesty to the court he had ever experienced. The couple did not own a house or other property although the husband had a very high income and was leading a luxury lifestyle. The wife was caring for their two children on a relatively low income. An order for periodical payments (monthly maintenance) was made and unusually, an order for costs against the husband.
Re D (A Child) [2024] EWFC 396 (B)
The judge in this case heard in Bradford Family Court was very critical of the local authority (although not of the individual social worker). A child aged 18 months had been with the same local authority foster carers for more than a year; his birth parents had conceded that they could not care for him; there was no suitable extended family carer; the foster carers had applied for a special guardianship order and this was supported by the Cafcass guardian. Everyone was in agreement that the foster carers were providing the child with excellent care. However the local authority was applying for a placement order with a view to adoption. There doesn’t appear to have been any full analysis by the local authority of the options, other than a concern about the foster carers not sharing the birth parents racial identity. The judge’s welfare analysis concluded that the child’s long term needs would best be met by making the special guardianship order. (See coverage by Local Government Lawyer, above.)
OTHER TRANSPARENCY etc NEWS
The Judiciary issued Practice Guidance in respect of transitioning of matters from the National DOL List (“NDL”) to the Court of Protection (January 2025), based on internal guidance already in place. This Practice Guidance covers cases where a child is 16 or 17 years old and a decision is taken that further consideration should be undertaken by the Court of Protection. A note on the Mental Capacity Law and Policy blog, The Court of Protection and deprivation of liberty of those under 18 explained that, ‘in cases involving 16/17 year olds where a decision is taken that further consideration should be undertaken by the Court of Protection, what should happen is not a transfer, but rather fresh proceedings in the Court of Protection, with the original papers in the NDL proceedings being released into those new proceedings’.
In an article in The Conversation, Fewer journalists are training to be court reporters – that’s a problem for justice (15 Jan 2025), Polly Rippon, who teaches journalism at Sheffield university, said court reporting in the UK is under threat, largely due to the decline of regional press, where the majority of specialist court reporters work. It did not help that fewer journalism students were learning shorthand. Yet in the age of misinformation the role of court reporters remained incredibly important, she said, not least in helping maintain open justice.
The Judiciary issued Practice Guidance by the PFD: The use of Intermediaries, Lay Advocates and Cognitive Assessments in the Family Court (23 Jan 2025). This appears to affirm and endorse the more restrictive approach already established in case law to the assessment of the need for an intermediary, and the extent of that need, in order to ensure a party is able to participate and/or be able to give evidence in a particular case. We have commented in more detail in a separate blog post.
The National Audit Office (NAO) published a report on Tackling violence against women and girls (31 Jan 2025) examining the Home Office’s leadership of the 2021 “Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls” Strategy (the VAWG Strategy) and the 2022 “Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan” (the Domestic Abuse Plan), to identify lessons to support the delivery of the government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls. It concludes that The Home Office is not currently leading an effective cross-government response.
The Family Justice Council (FJC) published its Guidance on Neurodiversity in the Family Justice System for Practitioners (January 2025) via the Judiciary website. The guidance is aimed at legal practitioners working with neurodivergent users of the Family Justice System, and follows almost two years of work drawing together the existing regulatory framework and setting out best practice, with contributions from across family justice. This guidance was co-produced with the Family Law Advice for the Neurodivergent Community (FLANC), who are providing training. Guidance for the judiciary is expected to follow later this year.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
The Family Justice Council (FJC) March Conference and Bridget Lindley Memorial Lecture will take place at Birmingham on Wednesday 12 March 2025, 09:30 – 16.30, under the Title: Diversity and Inclusion in the Family Justice System: Promoting Best Practice in Decision Making. The event will be hosted by Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division and Chair of the Family Justice Council. The annual Bridget Lindley Memorial Lecture will be given by Her Honour Judge Khatun Sapnara. The conference will be in-person, with the Bridget Lindley Memorial Lecture live streamed. Further details from the FJC.
FAMILY LAW IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS
Australia
The Guardian reported that Court annuls marriage after Melbourne bride thought wedding was ‘sham’ to boost groom’s Instagram (10 Jan 2025). This concerned the recently published case of Ryba & Achthoven [2024] FedCFamC1F 674 in which the applicant asserted that she had believed that when participating in the alleged wedding ceremony conducted in December 2023, she was acting in a video that the respondent was producing as part of his social media activities (on her version of events) the alleged wedding being no more than a mere dramatisation of a hypothetical wedding. She sought an annulment. Her evidence was that “He told me that he’s organising a prank wedding for his social media. To be precise, Instagram, because he wants to boost his content and wants to start monetising his Instagram page.” For his part, the respondent asserted that the marriage had been genuine and definitely not a hoax. It was validly and regularly witnessed, a wedding ring was produced and a valid wedding certificate was also produced. But the judge disagreed and granted the order of nullity sought by the bamboozled bride.
France
The UK Human Rights Blog posted Refusal of sex on demand in marriage still considered “fault” in French divorce (27 Jan 2025). Barrister Rosalind English explained the case of H.W. v FRANCE (Application no 13805/21) (Judgment in French) in which the European Court of Human Rights held that the French law, under which refusal of sexual relations may be sufficient to characterise a serious or repeated breach of the duties and obligations of marriage justifying divorce, constituted a breach of article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court concluded that the very existence of such a matrimonial obligation was contrary to both sexual freedom and the right to control one’s body and to the positive obligation of prevention incumbent on the Contracting States in combating domestic and sexual violence. The Court could not accept, as the Government suggested, that consent to marriage implies consent to future sexual relations. Such a justification would be likely to bar any possibility of prosecution for marital rape. Consent must reflect the free will to have a particular sexual relationship, at the time it occurs and taking into account its circumstances. Overall, the domestic courts, in upholding the divorce law, had failed to strike a fair balance between the competing interests at stake.
- A press summary of the case is available here.
- The case was also reported in the Guardian: Woman who refuses sex is not ‘at fault’ in divorce in France, court rules
Finally…
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