School fees
33.I address first the mother’s proposed application that the father should pay for A’s private education. 34.A herself has never hitherto been educated privately. Until about a year ago she was attending one of the best state schools in London namely the Grey Coat Hospital school in Westminster. Yet, the mother withdrew her from that school and since has been home-educating A. The local authority considers that the mother is not complying with the law and has commenced proceedings for a School Attendance Order under the Education Act 1996, although those proceedings have recently been placed on hold while further investigations of the quality of the home education provided by the mother are undertaken.35.The mother adduced no evidence as to what enquiries or steps she has taken to secure state secondary education for A. Some of the best state schools in the country are nearby. In addition to the Grey Coat Hospital school there are within the Royal Borough the Holland Park School and the Cardinal Vaughan School. The reason that the mother has produced no such evidence is that she has not approached any state school. Her position now is that they are anathema to her and she will only contemplate private education.36.The day after the hearing, the mother wrote to my clerk asking for permission to file a further statement. She said: “I am writing to seek permission from the Court to file short (no more than 2 pages) statement with evidence to rebut factually incorrect closing submissions and arguments that were made by counsel for Mr Galbraith-Marten at the hearing .I regret that when I had the opportunity to correct such inaccuracies, my struggle to overcome my anxiety and stress towards the end of the hearing, interfered with my short term memory/ recall and my ability to "hold my nerve" and respond promptly to those inaccuracies. To my frustration, just five minutes later as I left the Queens Building, I immediately remembered.”37. I granted the mother permission. The statement was filed on 7 October 2022. In it she stated:“During A’s tenure as a student of Greycoat School ("GCH”), A’s cognitive, linguistic and social disposition (that she clearly possessed excellent proficiency and strength in) were falsely denigrated, in what was a blatant move by RBKC to try and sabotage A’s “Gillick” competent status and suppress the weight of her own independent feelings and (maternally aligned) views in the proceedings. The GCH senior staff who assisted RBKC in this, betrayed A’s educational interests in the process. Following the collapse of RBKC’s case against me, I resolved to continue supporting A’s attendance at GCH, hoping that relations with GCH would improve now that the court proceedings were over. However, by the end of 2021, A was desperately unhappy to continue attending the school and begged me to let her home school until I was able to secure a private school place for her. After much careful consideration, I agreed.”38.Prior to the commencement of the hearing before me on 4 October 2022 there had been no evidence filed showing an understanding between the parents that A should be educated privately. The father himself was not educated privately and his other children aged 13 and 9 are not educated privately. But in her oral submissions to me the mother stated that about 10 years ago the father wrote an email in which he accepted the principle of a private education at secondary level. That was the first time in this huge and extensive litigation that such a stance on the part of the father had ever been alleged. This email was not produced with the mother’s additional statement of 7 October 2022 which I allowed her to file after the hearing concluded (see above). However on 12 October 2022, after this judgment had been largely written and the day before the scheduled hand-down, the mother wrote to my clerk stating that she had found two emails and asked for permission to file them. With reluctance I allowed her to do so and I gave permission to the father to file a statement in response on 14 October 2022. 39.The emails are dated 19 January 2011 and 18 March 2011, that is when A was just three years old.40.In the first the father writes to the mother:“I am not in a position to contribute any more to your and A’s support at the moment. I think we should look at this again when A starts school proper and when the level of maintenance I pay reduces.”In the second he writes to the mother’s Australian solicitor:“I write in reference to your recent letter. The only email exchange I have had with Katie about payment for educational fees is attached, below. Your letter was the first I had heard of the Kambala school or that Katie was in fact asking me to commit to payment of school fees for the next 12 years or so at a cost of up to around $30,000. As you may imagine your letter therefore came as quite a surprise.It is also not entirely clear what I am being asked to pay for… the email from Katie requested payment of $4000 to cover current costs. The schedule attached to your letter lists far greater costs. I do not know when these are meant to start. As indicated in my email to Katie I am not in a position to pay anything in addition to the maintenance payments I currently make. Only when the payments reduce around A’s fifth birthday do I anticipate being in a position to contribute towards school fees. At that point in time I would want to be much more involved in the decision about which school is appropriate for her and what a fair level of contribution might be. In the circumstances I am certainly not willing to enter into any new binding arrangements. As for the suggestion that you will commence proceedings in the UK, I will clearly have to take advice about this when I return home.”41.In his statement in response the father stated:“2.At the hearing before Mr. Justice Mostyn on 4 October 2022, Ms. De Renee indicated that she had an email from me in which I agreed to pay for private school fees for A. As is clear from the two emails she has now disclosed, that is not the case. I have never agreed to pay for private school fees. I merely indicated, over a decade ago and when A had just turned three years old, that I would be willing to discuss the issue at some point in the (then) future. I also made it clear in the same email that I would want to be involved in any decision about which school would be appropriate for A. As the court is aware, I have not been.3.The emails also need to be seen in context. To the best of my recollection, whilst I was in Australia to visit A in March 2011, Ms. De Renee asked me, out of the blue, to attend an appointment with her solicitor, Mr. Michael Conley … Ms. De Renee wanted me to meet Mr. Conley to agree an amendment to the Binding Financial Agreement we had entered into in relation to child support. I subsequently (and whilst still in Australia) received a letter from Mr. Conley explaining the purpose of the appointment and attaching a schedule of school fees for the Kambala School (a Church of England school).4.I felt completely ambushed by this. I wrote the email in a state of some confusion as to why I was being asked to pay for school fees. Whilst I have always taken the view that I would not want any child of mine attending private school in the UK, I had little understanding of the Australian education system and knew nothing about the State’s provision of education. I did not know whether it was normal or usual for children to attend private school. Furthermore, I was trying not to be unnecessarily difficult or obstructive, as the primary purpose of my visit was to spend time with A and I did not want to jeopardise that.5.I declined to agree to a variation of the Binding Child Support Agreement to cover school fees. It was as a result of this that Ms. De Renee made it clear to me she was not willing to facilitate me having further contact with A. For example, she refused to allow me to telephone A when I returned to the UK and refused to allow me to have any face-to-face contact with A when I next visited Australia in March 2012. It was because she took this stance that I commenced proceedings in Australia on 22 September 2011 for parenting orders, the equivalent of a Child Arrangements Order. This is the application that led to the order of Judge Scarlett dated 19 October 2012.”42.The mother has written to my clerk in response disputing the father’s statement, in particular para 5, and stating that she has yet further documents to prove its falsity. She has been told by my clerk that I am not going to accept any further documents. A line has to be drawn. However, I have disregarded the contents of para 5 apart from the first sentence. They have no bearing on my decision. 43.The mother’s proposal now to launch A into private education at the father’s expense is untenable. Her application for permission in this respect is unarguable and should be refused for the following reasons. a)As the emails produced by the mother make clear, there has never been an agreement, plan or understanding between the parents that A should be educated privately. The emails show that the mother wanted such an agreement, but they make equally clear that one was never reached.b)There has already been a finding in this case on 21 June 2018 by District Judge Aitken that private education was inappropriate in this case. While such a finding does not constitute res judicata, because circumstances inevitably have changed with the passage of time, I do not consider that a departure from the status quo set by that judge is justified.c)I am satisfied that the proposal would be contrary to A’s interests. It would represent a form of education which is unknown to her. In my judgment it would be in her best interests for her to attend a state secondary school. I cannot accept that the local authority or the staff at Grey Coat Hospital school conspired to sabotage A’s educational interests. Equally, I think it unlikely A herself has independently formed the uninfluenced view that she would not be happy until she left that excellent state school and was placed in a private school, a position which coincidentally exactly reflected the views of her mother. d)Even if the father now has the means to pay for private education for A it would in my judgment not only be contrary to her interests but fundamentally unjust were he to be ordered to do so. As stated above, the father himself was not educated privately and his other children aged 13 and 9 are not educated privately. The mother has emphasised to me repeatedly that the father was deprived of parental responsibility in Australia (but not here) and that accordingly, in her opinion, hers is the only parental voice that should be heard on the question of education. The father should have no say or other input, according to her, other than to pay. In my judgment to force him to do so would be a gross injustice which I am not prepared to contemplate.