Case No. LS20P01640

23.The background history is reasonably fully set out at §3-§13 of the first judgment ([2020] EWFC 80). I updated the history at §6-10 of the second judgment ([2021] EWFC 72).24.I do no more here than provide a short resumé of the history, and a summary of the current position. 25.The mother is now 31 years of age. She is a university graduate who has worked in the fashion and interior design world in the past; she does not currently work. The father is 51 years of age. He continues to live predominately in ‘State A2’ on the west coast of the USA in a luxurious home (sufficiently sumptuous to feature on the front cover of a well-known interiors and lifestyle magazine) which stands in 4 acres of manicured beachside garden. The father is an investment manager and is immensely wealthy. He manages his business, or businesses, from his homes in State A and State B.26.The mother and father had a relatively brief relationship in 2020. For a time, the mother moved in to live with the father in his home in the USA. There was talk of marriage; in February 2020 the father asked the mother’s father for the mother’s hand in marriage. The mother fell pregnant at about that time. The parents separated during the pregnancy, and the mother returned to England three months before Zoe was born.27.Since my earlier judgments, the mother and Zoe have continued to live in London in rented accommodation; the mother is and always has been assisted in her care of Zoe by a nanny. Since January 2023 Zoe has attended a private nursery for up to three hours each term-time morning; she has a calendar which is replete, it seems, with multiple other social and physical activities, and activities/therapies connected with her disability (see next section). 28.The father has not yet met Zoe. In his written evidence filed at an early stage of the proceedings, he said that he was “heartbroken” not to be able to see her, referencing the impediments caused by national lockdowns and the challenges of international travel during the CV-19 pandemic. Those explanations do not currently have much relevance. In his final evidence filed in the case he said this: “I would love to have a meaningful relationship with her, and I have no doubt that it is in her interests to have a meaningful relationship with me.”He blames the mother for obstructing their relationship but declares that he is not able to travel to London now given his work commitments. I should add that I do not recall seeing, within the extensive evidence filed, any reference to the father having ever sent Zoe a gift or card on her birthday, or possibly at all. 29.It is the mother’s case that she wishes Zoe to have a relationship with the father; she has offered the father time with Zoe in this country. She said that she hoped that the father would combine personal attendance at this final hearing with time spent with Zoe, and made specific written proposals in this regard. She told me that she has regularly sent photos, videos and welfare reports of Zoe to the father via WhatsApp, but he does not “engage” with this (the mother refers to his “radio silence in response to daily WhatsApp and email updates surrounding Zoe’s activities, health and schooling,”). The mother told me in her oral evidence that she would like to take Zoe to see her father in the USA perhaps later in 2023, for Thanksgiving. I note that the father issued her with a pressing all-expenses paid invitation to join him and his family for Thanksgiving and a three-week break in 2022, but she did not go. She told me, and I believed her, that she would like Zoe to spend time with the father.30.The parental relationship is, and has been for some time, highly conflictual. In his judgment on welfare issues, the President of the Family Division made these observations about them (§15):“I do not think it can be argued that it is profoundly contrary to her best interests for her parents to be so at odds with each other about, as it seems to me, everything and out of communication with each other, other than to exchange short messages, which are the opposite of being friendly. I make that observation I hope in a way that is one which is entirely sympathetic and empathetic to each of these two parents. They were not getting on at the time of Zoe's birth. They have then had to take on board and cope with the enormity of the diagnosis. There will be anger. There will be frustration. There will be feelings of guilt. There will be bewilderment. There will be exhaustion. All of these things will be features of their experience day-to-day at present. There will be feelings of grief. This is not the healthy baby that they would have hoped each of them to be a parent of. These are powerful emotions and, at the moment, they are playing themselves out in a wholly negative way, which can only be profoundly against the best interests of their baby. I am not being critical. I am simply stating what I see. They know what I am talking about.This dysfunctionality, this conflict in their relationship, needs addressing for the benefit of their baby. They have got years ahead of them of needing to be in touch. She needs them working together to support her as she gets on with the very difficult life of a child growing up with this condition.”On very little do the mother and father see eye-to-eye; in relation to Zoe’s health and condition (see below), the father accuses the mother of over-reacting and catastrophising, while she accuses him of indifference and a lack of real understanding. He accuses her of extravagance and unrealistic ambition in the prosecution of her claim for financial support for Zoe; she accuses him of parsimony. And so, sadly, it goes on.