FD24P00235 - [2025] EWHC 952 (Fam)

The parties’ time in Bolivia is the starting point of the mother’s allegations against the father of domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviours, which form the core of the findings that she seeks, the mother contending that the father revealed his true character only after they arrived in that jurisdiction.

The mother alleges that when the parents were in Bolivia the father began to abuse her and would leave her alone and locked in the house, meaning she was a virtual “prisoner”. In giving an account of this period to the DA in August 2020, the mother further implied that the father had caused her to lose a child by reason of the physical violence he perpetrated against her. There is no other evidence to corroborate that allegation and it is not pleaded in the Schedule. Within this context, the following allegations made by the mother are contained in the Schedule of Findings:

The father denies the mother’s allegation that he kept the mother prisoner and controlled her throughout their time in Bolivia, stating that the mother would socialise and secured part-time employment at a bakery until she became pregnant with P. He likewise denies causing the mother to have a miscarriage.

I am not satisfied that the mother has proved on the balance of probabilities that the father engaged in domestically abusive and coercively controlling behaviour in Bolivia. There is no evidence to corroborate the allegations made by the mother. Whilst I have been careful to remind myself that it is often the case that incidents of domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour lack corroborating evidence by reason of the nature of that conduct, the mother’s allegations fall to be evaluated in the context of the court’s view of the mother’s credibility, including aspects of her evidence concerning Bolivia that are undermined by documentary evidence or the absence thereof, in particular the marriage certificate and the absence of the Bolivian passport she contends for. The mother’s allegations are also not consistent in some respects with later evidence. Her assertion that she was not given money and not permitted to work by the father in Bolivia as an aspect of his coercive control is inconsistent with the clear evidence that she worked and earnt money following the family’s arrival in the US that I shall come to.