ZE23P01539 - [2025] EWHC 1403 (Fam)

This is a document completed during the respondent’s pregnancy. A form with a series of potential issues has been printed off the internet and completed, in the handwriting of the second applicant. It is not signed. It is not produced as a consequence of legal advice. The respondent says it was not something that had her full attention because it was being written up while she was clearing up after cooking them all a meal. The applicants say that they were all sitting round after dinner when it was filled in.

On any view it is no more than an indication of what the parties were thinking at that time and does not compel any particular conclusion on the issues which are before me now. Those issues need to be considered on their merits as things currently stand. I do however prefer the applicants’ account that the respondent did attend to the document and more particularly to the issues it raises. It does appear that the evening was arranged to allow them to talk through the parenting problems they anticipated facing. The document had been printed out in advance to allow them to do so. The document is more of a prompt for the discussions rather than a settled and detailed record of conclusions, hence it is not signed, but the parties never envisaged that they would end up in court.

I draw the following points as notable from that document:

I remind myself that this is not a formal legal document and that it is in the second applicant’s hand and may therefore reflect his interpretation of the discussions between the parties.