Case No. EWFC-75

These are feral, unprincipled and unnecessarily expensive financial remedy proceedings. It took days for me to read the papers and has taken even more days to write this judgment. Because there are so many intertwined issues, it has been difficult to structure this judgment and so I use headings throughout it to help anyone reading it. My original judgment has been anonymised by counsel to their satisfaction and I am publishing it in that form., save that I have also anonymised the names of the two adult children of this marriage and removed the children’s dates of birth.2.In addition to the financial remedy issues, the wife also seeks declarations that the husband has beneficial interests in two properties that are held in the names of others. She asserts, also, that the husband has a controlling influence in a business operated by a company, the shares of which are owned by another third party. The two properties that are subject to the trust claims are i) 50-52 High Street, Burnham on Sea, of which the legal title is held in the sole name of the Second Respondent, Rupia Begum and ii) 4 Morland Rd, Highbridge, which is now held in the sole name of the Seventh Respondent, Sume Begum. The business is the New Chandni Restaurant which operates from 50-52 High Street, Burnham-on-Sea. The company that operates the restaurant, nominally, is the Third Respondent, Bluebird Restaurant Ltd, of which the Fourth Respondent, Mohammed Haque, is the sole shareholder; during the hearing it was revealed that another company (‘Chandni Catering Ltd’) has taken over Bluebird Restaurant Ltd.’s position in relation to the restaurant business, at least on a ‘trial’ basis. If the husband does not have an interest in the two properties (50-52 High St and 4 Morland Rd), the wife contends that he will benefit from them by way of arrangement with the property owners. The issues in the case were narrowed during a pre-trial hearing before me on 12th April 2022 and therefore some of the civil pleading that is contained in the bundle is now otiose.3.This case, therefore, involves a husband, a wife, 5 children of the marriage, a restaurant (The New Chandni Restaurant), the company that is said to have run the restaurant (Bluebird Restaurant Ltd, the Third Respondent), the sole shareholder and director of Bluebird Restaurant Ltd (a Mr Haque, the Fourth Respondent), and the people in whom the property at 4 Morland Rd was vested at the outset of the proceedings (i.e. Ms Sume Begum, the Seventh Respondent and, formerly, Mr Shakir Jumon, the Eighth Respondent). I have put a list of the parties in a header at the top of each page of this judgment to assist anyone reading it. 4.In this judgment, where I refer to documents in which the titles of the parties from the civil proceedings have been used (e.g. ‘Claimant’, ‘C’, D1 etc), I have changed them to the abbreviations that I have referred to above and which are more suitable to proceedings that take place in the primary context of the financial remedy issues between divorced parties. 5.The trust and business issues are relevant to determining the issues under section 25(2)(a) of The Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 – see Tebbutt v Haynes [1981] 2 All ER 238. As Mr Justice Mostyn said in TL v ML (Ancillary Relief: Claim against Assets of Extended Family) [2006] 1 FLR 1263: ‘A dispute with a third party must be approached on exactly the same legal basis as if it was being determined in the Chancery Division’ or, I add, in any other court of civil jurisdiction. That, however, does not mean that the trust claims should ever have been allowed to dominate the litigation and procedure in the way that has happened in this case.6.Because of the number of parties and representatives, I have colour coded a table, that I set out below, to give a brief description of each of the parties and their legal representatives. I have also created a table, which I attach as an appendix, of some of the many other people whose names arise in these proceedings; I have given a brief description of each such person and placed their names in alphabetical order. In this judgment, I abbreviate the Applicant wife by referring to her as ‘the wife’ or, simply ‘W’. I abbreviate the First Respondent Husband by referring to him as ‘the husband’ or, simply, ‘H’. I abbreviate the town of Burnham-on-Sea, sometimes, by referring to it as ‘Burnham’ or, simply ‘B-O-S’. I refer to other parties by their names or by their Respondent number (R2, R3, etc). On 12th April 2022, I struck out the wife’s claims against the Fifth and Sixth Respondents and show the entries relating to them in the table below with the typing struck through; I have not changed the numbering of the Respondents, however, since this would merely cause even more confusion.7.