Musings on new fangled equality

Just a thought. I’m not trying to be controversial or nuffing. But it did occur to me today that whilst the clamour for a presumption of equal parenting is all well and good (I agree its a solution that should be given serious consideration in most cases, but not that this should be elevated to [...]

FNF & CAFCASS Draft Shared Care Docs Criticised

Thanks to Family Law Week for notice of this article on Community Care regarding the role Families Need Fathers is playing in drafting CAFCASS Guidance. . It’s concerning in the first instance that the drafts should have been apparently subject to criticism from respected academics, although it’s unclear from the article what the detail of those [...]

Not Punny

My husband wants to know if Wall LJ’s Larkin judgment is what they call ‘poetic justice’? (groans) In the words of Basil Brush: Bu-Boom.

A few titbits…

…to keep all the snowed-in out there occupied (if you aren’t out hurtling down a hill on a bin lid that is). I don’t have time today to chase up all these items but thought some of you might be interested… Children’s Society report (Thanks Teech Liz) – from a 2 second look at the [...]

Creative Accounting

Helpful suggestion from a District Judge the other day: when making a shared residence order couple it with a condition pursuant to s11(7) Children Act 1989 providing that the parent in receipt of Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits / Working Tax Credits pay to the other each week / month a sum representing the pro rata proportion of [...]

Absent Mothers

Just to note an interesting article in Tuesday’s T2 section of The Times about Mothers living apart from their children. It deals with various scenarios including the all too familiar example of a mother leaving an abusive relationship where, by the time she has got herself on her feet and obtained accommodation for herself and [...]

I posted about extended family members being viewed as the cheap option by local authorities before – often being paid less than any other foster carer would be paid notwithstanding the fact that they are doing the same job, arguably with value-added. Here is another example of a Local Authority being taken to task over [...]

Intercontinental Mistakes

Oh how true…This post from the Maryland Divorce Legal Crier blog is no less relevant for being from across the pond. It paints an all too familiar picture of the cringeworthy correspondence files I often get sent with my briefs. It makes me want to weep! Its easy enough to get drawn into a pointless [...]

grrrrr

This may be shouting into a gale but dammit will SOMEBODY PLEASE tell social services legal departments that you cannot obtain a supervision order through a last minute recommendation in a s37 report without issuing a s31 application in the usual way? If my client’s long awaited final hearing on residence is waylaid this week [...]

Enforcement of Contact Orders – let it be shouted out from the roof-tops

The privacy of the family justice system makes it difficult for the public to get a good idea about what steps the courts are prepared to take in order to ensure that a child has a relationship with both parents. Those sources which are most critical of the ‘secret family justice system’ often suggest that the courts [...]