FD24P00235 - [2025] EWHC 952 (Fam)

The circumstances of the mother’s childhood are opaque on her account. The mother denied having two brothers, notwithstanding the father produced photographs of those individuals (which the mother asserted were “fakes”) and that the paternal grandmother stated she was aware of them and spoken to the mother’s brother [N]. The mother asserts that she was subjected to sexual abuse from a very young age perpetrated, she alleges, by her ‘stepfather’, a man her mother met after her parents separated. The mother alleges that the abuse began from when she was approximately six or seven years old. She contends that her own mother was aware of the sexual abuse but refused to take action regarding this for fear that she would be punished for committing adultery in a relationship outside marriage. At the age of 12 or 13, the mother alleged she was forced into a marriage with an elderly man who was approximately 85 years old. According to the mother, throughout this forced marriage, she was expected to perform sexual acts on her husband until, when she was approximately 14 years old, her husband died. Thereafter the mother alleges that her maternal grandparents attempted to arrange another forced marriage. It was at this point that, in some of her accounts, the mother states she decided to flee her family and thereafter stayed with a friend in Dubai, through whom she met the father.

As with other aspects of the mother’s account, her evidence as to the circumstances of her childhood has changed and evolved significantly over time, including how many times she has been forced into marriage. Cross-examined on behalf of the mother by Mr Setright KC, the father stated that the childhood abuse alleged by the mother was never brought up with him and that he was “surprised” to read the mother’s statement on this topic. Whilst the broad account of a traumatising childhood has been maintained by the mother, the court is not in a position to make findings regarding the mother’s assertion that she was the victim of forced marriage and sexual abuse as a child (not least given the manifest problems with the mother’s credibility) and none are sought.

During the course of the evidence, the court also had cause to examine aspects of the father’s history. Records from the United States, which are incomplete, show that the father was involved in proceedings in 2005 and 2013 between himself and his own mother. Screenshots evidencing these proceedings were admitted into evidence following an application made by the mother and I directed short statements from the father and paternal grandmother addressing the evidence. The documents, which comprise case dockets, categorise both cases as concerning “Domestic Violence”.

With respect to the 2005 proceedings, both the father and paternal grandmother assert that these arose out of a dispute between them as to whether the father’s two younger brothers should be sent to boarding school in Bolivia or not. The father was frank in cross-examination that he had tried to stop his brothers from being sent to Bolivia and that he “was interfering” with the paternal grandmother’s parenting. The 2005 docket further records the father making a sworn statement concerning possession of firearms. Both the father and paternal grandmother assert that the father did not own firearms in 2005 and the sworn statement is not available to demonstrate whether it deposed to the father owning firearms or not owning firearms. However, a police report contained in the bundle dated 31 November 2005 records that the paternal grandmother and the father had been involved “in a verbal dispute ref. family matters” and were calm and separate when officers arrived. The police report records no firearms being involved. The proceedings in 2005 resulted in an injunction against the father lasting approximately two years. This is consistent with the accounts given in the short statements directed by the court. Neither the paternal grandmother nor the father have any recollection of the 2013 proceedings and, from the docket, the application appears not to have been served.

Whilst relied on by the mother, I do not consider the proceedings between the father and his own mother, the first of which was now over 20 years ago, to be probative of a controlling or coercive approach by him generally. Both the documentary evidence and the frank evidence given by the father and the paternal grandmother support the contention that the proceedings arose out of a family dispute regarding the schooling of the father’s young brothers. The fact that the father had strong views about this does not, in my judgement, amount to corroborative evidence that he acted in a domestically abusive or coercive and controlling manner towards the mother.