Financial orders made in divorce cases are meant to draw a line in the sand so that people can get on with the rest of their lives. However, they inevitably involve some speculation as to what the future may hold and, as one big money
How, if at all, is the duty of local authorities to allow children in their care reasonable contact with their parents affected by social distancing rules arising from the COVID-19 pandemic? The Court of Appeal confronted that issue in a guideline case. The case concerned
It is not only in the realms of fiction that lovers choose to marry in secret, away from the gaze of their disapproving families. A highly unusual High Court case, however, showed the legal difficulties that can arise from such arrangements. The case concerned a
Adopting children from overseas is fraught with legal pitfalls and those who attempt to do so without first taking expert advice expose themselves to heartbreak. In one case, however, the High Court came to the aid of a British woman who adopted a little girl
When children suffer injury, suspicion very often falls on their parents. Allegations of such gravity must, however, be proved and, in one case, the High Court exonerated a loving couple who were accused of assaulting their six-month-old baby. When taken to hospital by her parents
Parents are required not only to feed and water their children, but also to give them the love and emotional warmth that they need to thrive. A family judge powerfully made that point in freeing for adoption two children whose exceptionally cold and disengaged mother
In the throes of family breakdown, parents often focus on their own personal battles – but it is the best interests of their children that are always uppermost in family judges’ minds. In a case on point, the wishes and feelings of two teenagers proved
To say that parents bear a moral responsibility to ensure that their children behave themselves in public is uncontroversial – but are they also under a legal duty to do so? The High Court addressed that issue in ruling that the sins of an allegedly
English judges increasingly recognise the validity of pre-nuptial agreements. As a High Court ruling showed, however, they are far more likely to be considered not worth the paper they are written on if they are signed without legal advice. The case concerned a former couple
In order to be divorced you obviously have to be validly married, and bigamy remains a surprisingly common occurrence. In one case, the High Court found that a couple’s overseas wedding did not render them husband and wife – because she was already married to
