Under the current law perpetrators of domestic abuse have to be charged with offences which apply to the population generally (assault, harassment etc.). On 20th August the Home Secretary Theresa May announced a consultation on whether a specific crime of domestic abuse would improve police performance in this area. Although Read more…
The issue of surrogacy has been in the news recently due to allegations that an Australian couple rejected a baby boy born in Thailand under a commercial surrogacy arrangement. The baby’s twin sister was accepted but the boy was not as he has Down’s syndrome. The law governing surrogacy in Read more…
Binding pre-nuptial agreements became one step closer to becoming law on 27th June 2014 when the House of Lords gave their backing to a draft bill. The current law is that pre-nuptial (also called pre-marital or pre-civil partnership) agreements are one of the factors a court takes into account when Read more…
From 10th December 2014 same sex couples in a civil partnership will be able to convert this to a marriage. This announcement from Culture and Equalities Minister Sajid Javid was made on 26th June in Pink News (www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/06/26). Marriage for same sex couples was introduced on 29th March 2014 , Read more…
This was one of the headlines in the news on Monday 23rd June on the BBC and in numerous broadsheet newspapers. A report carried out by two universities and funded by the Nuffield Foundation found that around one in three court applications by Local Authorities to take children into care Read more…
On 16th June a new law came into force criminalising forced marriage. The Home Office definition of forced marriage is ‘one in which one or both spouses do not consent to the marriage but are coerced into it through physical, psychological, financial, sexual and emotional pressure’. The maximum penalty for Read more…
Since the cuts to legal aid for family cases in April 2013, there has been a rise in the number of companies offering loans to fund legal costs. These ‘litigation loans’ are only available for financial cases in which the client is likely to receive a settlement with which they Read more…
Terms Used CSA – Child Support Agency CMS – Child Maintenance Service PWC – Parent with Care NRP – Non Resident Parent The Child Support Agency stopped taking on new cases from November 2013 and is to be abolished completely by 2017. It is being replaced by the Child Maintenance Read more…
On 17th April 2014 the Government produced a consultation paper on outsourcing certain aspects of the child protection functions, most of which are currently carried out by Local Authorities. This is a five page document available at httpss://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/delegating-childrens-social-care-functions . Responses to the consultation are to be submitted by 30th May Read more…
What have longer daylight hours and more sunshine got to do with family law? There are two scenarios which immediately come to mind: opportunities for parents to spend time with children outdoors and improved prospects of selling property. In situations where the trust between parents has broken down, the time Read more…