FD24P00124 - [2025] EWHC 621 (Fam)

Mr Justice Hayden :

On 10^th December 2024, I listed this matter for a fact-finding hearing in the context of an application brought by the father (F), pursuant to the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court, in relation to his son (Y). Y is now 13 months old. It is convenient to identify a number of principles: a fact-finding hearing “can be an inquisitorial (or investigative) process, which at all times must protect the interests of all involved” (see PD12J, FPR 2010). As in all family proceedings “the Court’s only concern…is to get at the truth” per Lady Hale in Re A [2012] UKSC, para. 36. The parameters of a fact-finding hearing are well established and conveniently summarised by Cobb J in Re B-B (Domestic Abuse: Fact-Finding) [2022] EWHC 108 (Fam). It is unnecessary to rehearse them here.

F has filed four substantial statements; M has filed three. Each has now set out, in schedule format, the findings they respectively seek. The background to this hearing is highly antagonistic. Each of the parties has made serious allegations against the other. Some of those allegations have a criminal complexion to them. Though the major protagonists would appear, on the face of it, to be F and the mother (M), the extended family, on both sides is, though to differing degrees, deeply involved in this high octane and profoundly corrosive dispute. F’s case is that M has been manipulated and controlled by her family. There is compelling evidence that M’s family are organised criminals involved in very serious crime, centred in Berlin. M’s case, as pleaded in her statements, is that F has been coercive and controlling towards her.

F is a 32-year-old man. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon and moved to live in England with his family when he was 7 years old. M is 23 years of age, born in Berlin, Germany. The family is inter-related. The maternal grandfather is the nephew of the paternal grandfather. The parties first met in August 2022 in Berlin. They were introduced by their families, and it was arranged that they would be married. M’s family is a large one, she is one of twelve siblings, most of whom, it must be said, have criminal records for serious criminal offences.

F’s family is not quite so large. He is one of six siblings. His experience of life has been very different from that of M. His parents, most conspicuously his mother (PGM), have placed a very high value on hard work and academic achievement. They are a high achieving family. F describes his family as Muslim but adds that they “have very much assimilated into British culture”. Two of the older sisters live independently. Three live in London, one with her female partner. This is regarded as quite unremarkable by the paternal family. Each of these sisters are graduates with successful careers. I find that PGM, in particular, has encouraged all her children, irrespective of gender, to look outwards to the world, encouraging them to travel and to enjoy independence. Their religion and culture are important to them but coexist alongside Western values and beliefs.

F is very much respected by all his family. He obtained a First-Class Honours Degree in Business Management and Leadership and is now employed as a Senior Technology Analyst at a major Bank, specialising in Risk Finance. As an intelligent man, F quickly appreciated that he and M came, effectively, from different worlds with dramatically differing experiences and expectations of life. I am satisfied that even before the marriage, the fault lines between the two families had begun to crack open. I have heard evidence from F and from PGM that the maternal grandmother (MGM) was combative and unwelcoming from the first meeting. She certainly expresses herself volubly. Within minutes of being in the witness box, she began shouting angrily, complaining that F was behind a screen and avoiding the questions put to her by Mr Green, on behalf of F. Her hostility towards F and the paternal family was visible immediately and throughout her evidence. She had failed to understand that the screen arrangements were at the request of her daughter’s legal team and not designed to give some advantage to F.

It is pertinent to note, at this point, that at an earlier hearing, I sanctioned ‘special measures’ in the courtroom, as I have stated, at the request of Ms Cameron-Douglas, on behalf of M. Mr Green did not oppose the application. Though the parties’ accounts strongly conflict, there was mutual recognition of M as vulnerable. On F’s account, that is said to be in consequence of the maternal family’s behaviour generally and towards her in particular. On M’s written account, F was said to have been coercive and controlling towards her. Another important consideration was the fact that as a 16-year-old girl, M was severely beaten, to the extent that her life was compromised. She had to spend a significant period in ICU. This ordeal has had an impact on her, which I will return to below. I mention it here because I regard it as a facet of her vulnerability which supported my view that the quality of her evidence might be diminished without ‘Participation Directions’, per Rule 3A.2A, FPR 2010:

“3A.2A.

Subject to paragraph (2), where it is stated that a party or witness is, or is at risk of being, a victim of domestic abuse carried out by a party, a relative of another party, or a witness in the proceedings, the court must assume that the following matters are diminished—

the quality of the party’s or witness’s evidence;

in relation to a party, their participation in the proceedings.

The party or witness concerned can request that the assumption set out in paragraph (1) does not apply to them if they do not wish it to.

Where the assumption set out in paragraph (1) applies, the court must consider whether it is necessary to make one or more participation directions.”

In the witness box, PGM told me that she had been against the marriage and that she communicated that to her son. From the outset, she was opposed to a traditionally arranged marriage. She told me, in her evidence, that she was surprised that her son had elected such a course. F explained to me that having dated Western women, he had begun to think that the principles and beliefs of a more traditional Muslim marriage might make him happier. He greatly respects his parents. I had a sense that he was trying to replicate the commitment and warmth of his parents’ marriage. He also greatly respects his own mother and again, I sensed, he thought he might only find her equal as a wife in a woman from a traditional Muslim background. The wedding went ahead despite the doubts that, I am satisfied, had begun to creep in. F’s sisters did not attend the wedding in Berlin. F told me, and I accept, that was “due to the gossip that was circulating about their living arrangements and way of life”. I have no doubt that in their absence, they were sorely missed by the paternal family.

Manifestly, the tensions within the family had begun to surface. F told me he had begun to see his wife’s family as “misogynistic” and “homophobic”. Nonetheless, there was an evolving attraction and growing affection between F and M themselves. F told me that he had hoped that M, living as a married woman in England, would develop independence and a greater degree of freedom. The couple’s activities all indirectly promoted these goals. F was candid about it. He had hoped to show his wife a different way of life from that she experienced with her family. I was left with no doubt that she knew this and was intrigued by it. However, I do not think that F was always alert to the tensions that created for her. Though, in her evidence, she is studiously defensive of her family, she is also, I find, genuinely and sincerely respectful of her husband. I was left with a clear impression that she had a strong experience of divided loyalties. In the circumstances, this was not only unsurprising, it was also, perhaps, inevitable.

M told me, at one point, that there were times when she wished F had been more “traditional”. At the time she said that, I did not entirely understand what she meant, but as her evidence developed and as I watched her responses in the courtroom, I grew to understand that she considered that her family would have been more respectful of her husband if he had been a little less liberal and rather more traditionally authoritative. On their visits to the UK, F told me that M’s family would treat him disrespectfully. The brothers would make F pay for extensive taxi journeys, which they were in a position to afford themselves. F had to move out of the matrimonial home to stay with his mother when M’s parents and/or siblings stayed. F considered that they thought he was weak. M recognised this and, I believe, this was what she had meant when she said that she sometimes wished her husband had been more ‘traditional’. In the context of her evidence as a whole, I suspect she might have wanted to add to that ‘when her family was around’.

M’s family were as perplexed by F’s approach to life as he was by theirs. The tenets of Islam, which include a strong belief in the importance of heterosexual marriage and the obligation of a man to protect his family, as head of the household, can appear to be ‘homophobia’ and ‘misogyny’ to those who are not as assiduously committed to a rigorous interpretation of the Islamic code or who may interpret it differently.

One particular incident, which is highlighted by M’s Counsel, relates to an occasion when M and F were meeting with M’s parents for dinner. There is little doubt from my reading of the many text messages that F was physically, as well as emotionally, attracted to his wife. The WhatsApp messages are full of mutual intimacy:

“[15/12/2023, 11:46:01] [M] ⁠⁠ : Ich dachte schon du

bist die ganze zeit so komisch

[15/12/2023, 11:46:19] [M] ⁠ : Habibi [F]

[15/12/2023, 11:46:30] [F]: I miss you [M]

[15/12/2023, 11:46:34] [F]: You are my heart

[15/12/2023, 11:46:41] [F]: You are my literal heart

[15/12/2023, 11:46:53] [M] ⁠ : Wir sehen uns

inshaallah um 4?

[15/12/2023, 11:47:04] [M] ⁠ : I miss you too

[15/12/2023, 11:47:19] [M] ⁠ : Hab dich ganz doll

lieb habibi

[15/12/2023, 11:47:40] [F]: Yes bebe see you

downstairs at 4

[15/12/2023, 11:47:54] [F]: Which restaurant have

you decided on!