Leaving the country to evade care proceedings – how does the court in England & Wales get your children back?

by reporting watch team | Aug 14, 2018 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

Hampshire County Council v C.E. and N.E. (Urgent preliminary ruling procedure – Jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgments in matters of parental responsibility – Opinion) [2018] EUECJ C-325/18PPU_O (07 August 2018)   Introduction The following...

‘Habitual Residence’ – sloppy explanations of the law about child abduction

by reporting watch team | Aug 9, 2018 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

We have been alerted to some less than perfect summaries of the law around international child abduction by the BBC recently. When a child is abducted to a foreign country away from their other parent, two things are a given: emotions will be running high and the law...

Void, Valid and Very Confusing – what is the status of Sharia Marriages in the UK?

by reporting watch team | Aug 3, 2018 | Comment, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

The High Court here in London has recently considered the status of an islamic marriage, that did not comply with all the usual formalities required in England & Wales. It has generated a lot of confused and confusing headlines – the marriage has been...

Just how close was 3-year-old ‘AJS’ to being adopted because of the unlawful immigration detention of her father?

by reporting watch team | Jul 28, 2018 | Analysis, Cases, Comment, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

Last week BBC News and the Guardian reported the important public interest story of a father’s unlawful immigration detention, that left his three-year-old unnecessarily in care and at risk of a plan for adoption, despite the family court declaring they should...

Owens v Owens: nobody panic

by Polly Morgan | Jul 25, 2018 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

Owens v Owens is a Supreme Court decision about divorce, specifically about the level of behaviour needed to obtain a divorce on the basis of a spouse’s behaviour. Although we commonly refer to this as ‘unreasonable behaviour’, the proper wording says: ‘That the...

Hit on the head by an old chestnut

by Polly Morgan | Jul 19, 2018 | Analysis, Cases, Comment, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Notorious

The hoary chestnut, the ‘meal ticket for life’, has fallen from the media and hit us squarely on the head again. This time, the impetus is a Supreme Court case called Mills v Mills. Back when it reached the Court of Appeal, one of my colleagues here on the...