The law recognises that victims of domestic abuse could be retraumatised if they were to be cross-examined by their abusers who are representing themselves. The law now provides for the court to appoint a lawyer to do so instead: a “Qualified Legal Representative” (QLR). The (alleged) abuser must of course also have a fair hearing, whether in the proceedings about an order preventing them from continuing or repeating the abuse or in financial or children proceedings. To deal with this conundrum, the court will now order for a QLR to conduct the cross-examination of the other party instead in ..read more

A recent case (S (Children: Parentage and Jurisdiction) [2023] EWCA Civ 897) shows two interesting points, which are of far wider significance on lesbian paternity and international family law. Two women had been civil partners in England and one of them gave birth to (it seems) four children. When the relationship broke down, the gestational mother moved to a Gulf State, they dissolved their civil partnership and both married other women. First the non-birth mother saw the children regularly, but the gestational mother then seems to have stopped that. The oldest child was in boarding school i ..read more

Women who get married to other women divorce at almost twice the rate gay men do. Overall, 14.4% of same-sex marriages and civil partnerships in England and Wales have ended in divorce. For men the rate is 11%, for women 18%. For same-sex marriage, which has only been around since 2014, the rates are even starker: 5% of male but 10% of female same-sex marriages have ended in divorce. For civil partnership the rates are 16% and 29% respectively. More male than female couples entered into civil partnerships until the end of 2020 (37,990 and 30,933), although more women got married (18,180 male ..read more

Andrea Woelke is a consultant at Josiah-Lake Gardiner Solicitors After extended parental leave Andrea Woelke has now joined Central London boutique law firm Josiah-Lake Gardiner as a consultant. The firm is led by partners David Josiah-Lake and Rebecca Gardiner. Rebecca has more than 30 years’ experience in family law and has a number of reported cases to her credit. David, who has been a family lawyer since 1992, set up the firm in 2004 (then Josiah-Lake Solicitors) before going into partnership with Rebecca in 2008. He writes extensively on family law issues and recently managed to achieve a ..read more

A story has made the rounds this silly season that the Queen has custody of her minor grandchildren (and by implication her great-grandchildren) instead of their parents. This appears to be total nonsense. This all seems to rely on a blog post by an American royal journalist Marlene Koenig who in turn relies on an article in the Times from 1993 by Michael L. Nash (which I could not find). The story relies on a number of points: A court case from 1717: Case concerning the King’s Prerogative in respect to the Education and Marriage of the Royal Family. Hilary Term, 4., Geo. I. 1717 This was a l ..read more

One parent can apply for a British passport for a child, but in many other countries both parents have to make the application. Often that includes personally coming to the appointment. For foreign parents living in the UK this can be a serious problem. I have had many such enquiries. Recently a mother contacted me (details anonymised): My daughter is 6 years old and I am from Spain. The father has not been involved in her life for 5 years and I do not know where he is. The Spanish embassy says he needs to come to make the application for the passport or I need a court order. Can you help ..read more

Eine deutsche Mutter, die in England mit Kindern und deren Vater lebt, kann nicht so einfach nach Deutschland zurück ziehen. Ich habe in den letzten Monaten in verschiedenen Foren Posts von deutschen Müttern gelesen, meist die wegen des Brexit, mit ihren Kindern nach Deutschland zurück ziehen wollen und wo der meist englische Vater hier in England bleibt. Das ist nicht so einfach, wie es vielleicht aussieht. Parental Responsibility Wenn der Vater „parental responsibility“ hat, brauchen Sie die Genehmigung des Vaters, oder eine Genehmigung vom Gericht. „Parental responsibility“ haben Väter, die ..read more

I frequently get asked how children should share their time between their parents. More parents agree or demand from the other that they have equal time. I have seen numerous variations of how that is done in practice, for example: One week with each parent. 3 days with each parent in turn, or 4 days with each parent in turn. Week days in turn with each parent. Complicated schedules where over a two or three week period weekdays and weekends are evened out but there are frequent changes. Any solution you agree must work for the children and must be practical depending on your work schedules ..read more

I have had several callers yesterday with essentially the same issue: the other parent is not agreeing to or not sticking to a clear schedule for time they spend with the child. In those cases I can either act for the parent, take detailed instructions and then correspond, all of which costs you money; or I can give generic advice. So I thought I would set out the basic generic advice here for everyone to read. Let’s take an anonymised example of a heterosexual couple where a young child, still a baby, lives with the mother. The same advice applies to same-sex couples, co-parents etc. The fath ..read more

A cohabiting couple had a child through surrogacy but separated during the pregnancy and the intended father no longer wanted to apply for a parental order. In a recent case, anonymised as M v F & SM (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008) [2017] EWHC 2176 (Fam), a cohabiting different-sex couple where the woman could not carry the child found a friend to be their surrogate. Both the intended mother and the intended father were the genetic parents. However, during the pregnancy the couple separated and the intended father no longer wanted anything to do with the child and did not joi ..read more