Up until last week the legal focus of the inquiry into child sexual exploitation (CSE) was from a criminal law angle. However, on Wednesday 19th November it was made public that injunctions had been obtained in the Family Division of the High Court against 10 men whom were suspected of Read more…
The case of the seriously ill 5 year old boy Aysha King has been all over the news this week. From a family law perspective the case is interesting as, on 1st September 2014, Aysha was made a ward of court on an application to the High Court by Portsmouth 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…
Statistics have recently been released which suggest in excess of 19,000 more parents appeared in civil Courts without expert legal representation in cases relating to their children in the 12 months that followed the Legal Aid cuts in April 2013. Prior to April 2013 those who could not afford to 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 22nd April 2014, a single family Court was introduced to take over the functions of the three different family Courts: the Family Proceedings Court (The Magistrates’ Court), the County Court and the High Court. Up until the changes, when we applied for an Order in respect of children, we Read more…
Thanks to recent legislation we now have a new Family Court designed to put the needs of children at the forefront. Previously, there were different tiers of courts and you could pick and choose which to use. They tended to have slightly different approaches to the way they dealt with Read more…