When a pair of New Age travellers split up and divorced in 1992, both were penniless and there was no order for maintenance to be paid to the ex-wife for her or the couple's more »

A convicted sex offender has been refused any involvement in his young son's future save for a single letter explaining his absence if the boy ever asks about his father when he more »

Two British children who were unilaterally removed from their mother by their father must be returned to their new home in Canada. The High Court ruled that the children had more »

A mother who failed to win permission to move overseas with her children due to the damaging impact on their relationship with their natural father has failed to convince the more »

A mother who abducted her children and flew with them to Australia in an act of ‘deliberate cruelty’ to her husband has nevertheless been set on the road to redemption. more »

Seven Supreme Court justices are to consider a landmark ‘big money’ divorce case that has caused huge controversy and exposed a fundamental rift between family and commercial more »

A mother who had her one hour-old son taken away from her by police after her boyfriend threatened to ‘mobilize an army of 200 skinheads’ to kidnap the child has failed to more »

A businessman who argued that a row he had with his wife in respect of her map-reading skills was wrongly treated as evidence that their relationship had irretrievably broken down more »

A father who abducted his three children from their home abroad can nevertheless keep them in England after his 13-year-old son vehemently objected to leaving the country. The more »

A would-be adoptive mother who was tragically struck blind by a brain tumour came home from hospital to face the trauma of social workers threatening to take the baby girl she more »

Even though sperm donors were deprived of the status of legal parents by the terms of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, they retained the right to seek contact with more »

The ex-wife of a Russian businessman who is engaged in a ‘titanic struggle’ to make him satisfy her £12.5m divorce award will receive at least a small part of her due more »

Even though sperm donors were deprived of the status of legal parents by the terms of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, they retained the right to seek contact with more »

The much-debated Bill to allow 'gay marriage' has been published on the UK Parliament website.Unexpectedly, the draft Bill excludes adultery with a member of the same sex as a more »

The English courts are empowered (under the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984) to determine the financial settlement on a foreign divorce in certain circumstances. This more »

A mother who had her daughter taken from her at birth and put into foster care due to concerns over her psychological frailty and habit of forming relationships with inappropriate more »

A property dealer who is said to be worth £400 million has been given a six-month jail term after a High Court judge ruled that he disobeyed orders to provide details of his more »

A father who claims that serious injuries suffered by his baby son were caused by a fall from his bouncy chair has been denied permission by the Court of Appeal to present a more »

Although an ex-wife fully understood the terms of a divorce settlement by which she agreed to pay her former husband a total of £450,000, a family judge was entitled to exercise more »

A £200 million asset freezing order issued in the context of the breakdown of the relationship between an extremely wealthy businessman and the mother of his children was more »

A senior family judge responded with ‘shock, alarm and disbelief’ to a money-driven dispute between two local authorities over which of them should pay for the support of two more »

In a ruling that underlines the limited weight that can be placed on the ‘wishes and feelings’ of children in family cases, the Court of Appeal has opened the way for a mother more »

A Court of Appeal ruling in a big money divorce case – which effectively outlawed the long-established practice of the High Court Family Division to look behind corporate more »

Victims of stalkers are now protected by tough new laws which make stalking a criminal offence in England and Wales. The offence will now carry a maximum six-month sentence and a more »

An ‘enormously wealthy’ businessman engaged in a decade-long financial dispute with the mother of his three children has won a court ruling that she was never his wife under more »

An unfaithful boyfriend whose ex-fiancée claimed that he made an ardent Valentine's Day promise to give her his £230,000 home if they split up or he ever cheated on her again more »

A mother and father's plea that vitamin supplements in formula baby milk led to them being condemned for battering their month-old baby has been rejected by a judge who refused more »

A woman has been permitted to re-open the financial aspects of her divorce after a High Court judge described her former husband as a ‘master of the half-truth’. The woman had more »

A vulnerable father has won an appeal against a family judge’s finding that he caused his baby daughter’s non-accidental injuries on grounds that the failure to provide more »

An airline pilot whose wife refused to return home with him after a family holiday has broken the tape first in their ‘race to divorce’. The Court of Appeal ruled that a more »

Parents whose baby daughter was taken from them after a hospital admission revealed multiple fractures of her skull have won an appeal against a ruling that the father was the more »

A businessman has failed in a unique bid to convince a High Court judge that a £350,000 debt he owes to his ex-wife in the context of their divorce should be wiped out by his more »

Two fathers who were handed suspended prison sentences by magistrates for failing to pay almost £13,000 in child maintenance have won their appeals after judges ruled that flaws more »

A ‘very rich’ businessman has been ordered to pay his ex-wife a lump sum of £4 million, plus £150,000-a-year for the rest of her life, to finalise their divorce. The former more »

A Saudi Arabian businessman is asking the Court of Appeal to rule that the family courts of England and Wales have no jurisdiction to resolve disputes between himself and his more »

The High Court is being asked to decide whether a Church of Scientology chapel should be recognised as a ‘place of worship’ at which marriages can be lawfully solemnised under more »

In a ruling which reveals a sharp division of views between family and corporate lawyers, the Court of Appeal has more than halved an ex-wife’s £17.5 million divorce settlement more »

The Court of Appeal has lifted the shadow of suspicion hanging over a mother and father accused of harming their baby after he sustained mysterious bruising. The court ruled that more »

A High Court judge is considering arguments that a businessman’s discharge from a bankruptcy in which his ex-wife was listed as a creditor expunged his obligation to pay her the more »

A High Court judge has ordered disclosure of social services records to the Official Solicitor who is investigating claims that social workers let down two children by delaying more »

In an important test case, the Court of Appeal is to consider medical evidence that vitamin supplements in baby formula milk may have led to an innocent couple being condemned as more »

In the midst of extremely acrimonious divorce proceedings, a High Court judge has ruled that a husband has no interest in a £40 million London home which was bought during the more »

A mother and father who claimed that serious injuries suffered by their baby daughter were caused by the strap of her bouncy chair have been permitted supervised contact with her more »

A ‘cavalier, callous and aggressive’ businessman who left his ex-wife mired in debt when they split up over his affair with another woman has been hit with a £4 million bill more »

An ultra-orthodox Jewish father has failed to convince the Court of Appeal that his ex-wife should be prevented from moving their children to schools where they will receive a more »

A local authority has admitted violating a mother and baby's human rights when social workers took away the little girl within hours of her traumatic hospital birth. The mother more »

Valid marriages are those that fall within the scope of the Marriage Act 1949. Before contracting a marriage, certain formalities are gone through, but it is not normally more »

A young mother who claims her troubled childhood in the care system meant she was given no fair chance to prove she could be a good parent to her baby daughter has had her more »

A mother may never be allowed to care for her four children again after refusing to leave her violent partner who ‘destroyed any kind of acceptable family life’. Senior more »

Following a review of the operation of the family courts by Mr Justice Ryder, the Government is poised to introduce measures designed to speed up the operation of the courts by a more »

A Court of Appeal judge faced with having to decide whether two young children should live with their mother or their grandmother has said that he ‘cannot be Solomon’ and more »

A Lord Justice of Appeal has emphasised the primacy of the principle of equality in the division of assets in divorce cases over conflicting principles of Sharia law. In some more »

A divorcing couple’s dispute over the partition of their £50 million fortune has been compared with spoilt children squabbling in a nursery by a senior family judge. Lord more »

In a cautionary tale for unmarried couples who fail to make formal arrangements regarding money and property, a former couple had to go to the High Court to resolve a dispute over more »

A father is one step closer to forging a relationship with his two-year-old daughter after judges at the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) ruled he should be given the chance to more »

The rights of children to have a meaningful relationship with both parents were at the centre of a case in the Court of Appeal Court in which a father was given fresh hope of more »

The benefits of a cohabitation agreement when a couple are living together were clearly illustrated by a recent Court of Appeal case. Christopher Chapman, an accountant, moved in more »

Judges at the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) have expressed concern after hearing that delays in the appointment of guardians in care proceedings have led to vulnerable children more »

A judge's right to change his or her mind after announcing a decision is at the centre of an ‘extraordinary’ Court of Appeal case involving a young child who could be more »

When the biological father of the child of a lesbian couple applied for contact with the child, the Court of Appeal faced a quandary. Was a ‘third parent’ (in this case a gay more »

A recent case in the Court of Appeal illustrates clearly why it is beneficial for couple who are living together to enter into a co-habitation agreement. Christopher Chapman, an more »

Child Tax Credit (CTC) benefits cannot be shared between parents, even if they live separately and the children spend time with each parent, following a decision of the UK Supreme more »

When a court has made a decision, it is not open for a person to argue in different proceedings in another court that, on the same facts, a different decision should be more »

A man who fathered a child for a lesbian couple and then sought a contact order, contrary to his initial agreement with them, has been successful in the Court of Appeal. After more »

One of the first ‘big money’ cases involving the break-up of a civil partnership has been heard by the Court of Appeal. The appeal concerned the decision of the family court more »

The action of a mother who ‘abducted’ her own child in Australia and brought him back to the UK was cleared by the Supreme Court recently. She removed her child to protect more »

When a judge failed to invite a child’s aunt and her husband, who were willing to care for him, to attend a hearing to determine his future care arrangements, a challenge was more »

When can a couple go through a properly carried out ceremony of marriage in this country and still be unmarried under British law – other than when the marriage turns out to be more »

A man who acted as a sperm donor so that a lesbian couple could have a baby, and who agreed not to seek parental rights, has found himself in the Court of Appeal after his more »

There have been many cases over the years which have involved the determination of shares of ownership of a property when an unmarried couple have split up and wished to dispose more »

The Government has announced plans to introduce legislation to give legal rights of inheritance to long-term cohabitees. There are currently more than two million couples living more »

For many years now, the system for adoption in the UK has been regarded by many as unduly lengthy and complicated, with fewer than one in 60 children in care in England and under more »

The normal rule on divorce is that matrimonial property (assets built up during the marriage) is to be divided equally. Non-matrimonial property (normally assets brought into the more »

The Supreme Court has now ruled in the 2010 case of Kernott v Jones in which the respective shares of a property bought by a couple who cohabited and then split up had to be more »

This is a case which has implications for all couples who live together but are unmarried. Patricia Jones and Leonard Kernot were such a couple, they lived together, had children more »

A recent dispute over a divorce settlement dealt with an unusual situation. The husband had been in an accident and was partially disabled. He had received a settlement of more »

The question of where one is resident is not only important for tax purposes, but also as regards where divorce proceedings can be brought. For those who lead a ‘jet-set’ more »

When a local authority terminated the placement of a child who had been placed with a view to adoption, and took the child back into care, the family with whom the child was more »

Relationships can seem indestructible when they begin. All that excitement and the feeling of being in love can make it seem pointless or untrusting of your partner to consider more »

Although the Civil Partnership Act, which allows same-sex couples to be legally joined, came into effect as long ago as December 2005, the right to have a same-sex religious more »

The old adage ‘once bitten, twice shy’ clearly does not apply to former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney. He has announced that when he marries Nancy Shevell at Marylebone Register more »

When a married couple with children are getting divorced and the financial arrangements are being considered, the primary concern of the court will always be the welfare of the more »

Two young children were prevented from being removed to Canada by their mother after the Court of Appeal ruled that to do so would not be in their best interests. The girls’ more »

When children are placed with foster parents, responsibility for them remains with the local council and the council retains the right to remove the children to a new foster home more »

A recent decision of the Court of Appeal shows how difficult it is to substantiate claims that assets held in trust are not to be taken into account when determining wealth for more »

When cohabiting couples fall out, what happens about the family home is often one of the most difficult issues to resolve. In a recent case, a couple had split up after living in more »

The new ‘mediation first’ rule applicable to divorce and separation have been well publicised, but moves to make the process more jargon-free have not received much more »

It may be assumed that when a couple purchase a property in equal shares, that is how ownership remains, but it isn’t necessarily so. In a recent case, the High Court had to more »

Under the Housing Act a spouse or civil partner has the right to succeed, in most circumstances, to an assured tenancy where he or she was cohabiting with the deceased  more »

Employers who offer childcare support to employees are reminded that from 6 April 2011, changes are being made to Employer Supported Childcare (ESC). Under the current ESC more »

The Court of Appeal has ruled that files of evidence obtained by stealth by a wife must be returned to her ex-husband. The Court considered that the breach of confidence of the more »

A new Website is being launched next week to help inform people about Collaborative Law.The website www.devoncollaborativelawyers.comhas been developed by a group of Collaborative more »

The Family Law team of WBW Solicitors has raised over £1000 for new facilities for the Torquay Contact Centre. The team, lead by head of department Fiona Yellowlees, did a more »