Child maintenance is financial support that the non-resident parent is expected to provide after a separation from the resident parent, or parent with care. When a relationship ends, co-parenting responsibilities do not – in fact they may require even more attention than before. Children must continue to be raised to the best of both parties’…
In today’s blog, we take an inside look at a celebrity custody battle that has been circulating in the news. We are referring to the very public and sometimes spiteful child custody battle for one-year-old daughter, Royalty, between Chris Brown and Nia Guzman. To give you a little context behind the legal drama, the custody…
Amid ongoing custody litigation in both London and New York, Mr Justice MacDonald has ruled that the English proceedings could be halted to allow for compromise between the parties or continuation of US proceedings. The crux of the matter is that Madonna and Guy Ritchie have been unable to agree where fifteen-year old son Rocco…
One of the hardest things family lawyers have to deal with is international child abduction. This is where one parent or person with legal custody (now known as living arrangements setting out that the child is to live with them) of a child under the age of 16 years takes or sends a child outside…
In the past 5 years a pioneering family court has saved public sector bodies £1.29m. The London Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) championed by District Judge Nicholas Crichton tackles drug and alcohol misuse in local authority care proceedings. The savings come from tackling drugs and alcohol with a head on approach, Crichton notes; “FDAC…
You recently settled your divorce and have slowly started to re-build your life. In fact, you have been excelling at work and have been offered a promotion – only hitch is the new position requires you to relocate to another branch on the other side of the country. Instead of celebrating, the first concern that…
Leave to remove applications are an area of law in which we specialise so we have been watching with great interest as the Court of Appeal examined the role of gender in leave to remove applications in F (A Child) (International Relocation Cases). For many years the leading case in this area has been Payne…
Two wealthy parents, described in court as being “intent on destroying each other”, were sent by a Judge to a parenting course and for prolonged CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) supervision because of the damage they were causing their children. In K v D (Parental Conflict) [2015] EWFC 49 the court…
Adoption agencies are to receive government funding from the Department of Education to match families to children placed for adoption. The funding, worth £ 4.5 million, will transform and streamline the care system by grouping all local authorities into a designated adoption agencies based on their region. Around 5,000 children were matched with adoptive families…
A mother’s decision to abscond following a recent unfavourable ruling in the Bristol Family Court led to a public outcry. Ms Rebecca Minnock a mother of one made the headlines last month after fleeing to an undisclosed location with her three year old son Ethan. Ms Minnock vanished with Ethan, spending seventeen days on the…