[2025] EWHC 1460 (Fam)

The principal parties and P are all nationals of the Czech Republic. The parents are both in their early 40s. The paternal grandfather is in his seventies.

The parents first met in 2015 and began a relationship shortly afterwards. They lived together until 2019 in a property in the Czech Republic owned by the father’s parents. P is their only child, although the father has two older daughters from a previous relationship. The parents’ relationship finally ended in 2022.

In August 2020, the mother and P moved to England with the father’s agreement and financial support (which included payment of rent and P’s nursery fees). On the father’s case, the amount he was sending was £3,000 per month for the first year, a figure which he reduced to £2,500 per month during their second year.

In August 2022, the mother returned to the Czech Republic after becoming unwell. She learned at that time that the father had formed a new relationship.

The parties each give different accounts of discussions that were held around that time concerning the potential for them to maintain a physical relationship. These are not relevant to these proceedings.

Following the ending of the relationship, the father reduced his financial support to the sum of £400 per month.

In January 2023, the mother and P returned to England. The circumstances of this move are disputed and not relevant to the issues with which I am now concerned. Following the move the father continued to pay £400 per month, albeit on the mother’s case payments were made sporadically.

Following a holiday which P enjoyed with his father in the Czech Republic over the 2023 Christmas period, the parents had a falling out which led to proceedings being issued; relations between the two of them worsened.

At the end of January 2024, the mother made an application for child arrangements orders including a ‘lives with’ order. At the outset of the proceedings, she sought and obtained a prohibited steps order and an order requiring the father to deliver up P’s passport to his solicitors. On 3 April 2024, the father cross applied for a ‘lives with’ order and an order permitting him to remove P permanently to the Czech Republic.

The welfare proceedings remain ongoing. It is obvious to me that they have generated considerable rancour. Each of the parties, in different ways, has sought inappropriately to link what is happening within those proceedings with this financial remedy process. The welfare dispute is likely to have made this relatively straightforward financial case more difficult to resolve.

These financial proceedings were initiated by the mother on 13 March 2024, the date upon which her Form A was issued. At the outset of the proceedings she made an application for the father to provide her with sums of money to meet her legal fees. This application came before the court on 23 May 2024, when Cobb J made a legal services order in the total sum of £200,668. The father remains substantially in breach of that order, having made only a limited payment of £15,000. Cobb J also made a freezing order against the father in respect of several assets including in relation to the South West London property. It later transpired that father had already transferred his interest in that property to his father, a fact he chose to withhold from the court.

On 19 July 2024, in the light of the father’s breach of the legal services order, Cobb J made a so-called ‘pound-for-pound order’ which required the father to match any payments made to his own solicitors with an equal payment to the mother’s solicitors. Various directions were given to enable the case to be considered at a Financial Dispute Resolution Appointment (‘FDR’).

The ‘pound-for-pound order’ did not have its intended effect of causing the father to provide funds to the mother’s solicitors. Instead, in August 2024 the father unilaterally reduced his maintenance payments to the sum of £150 pm. Thereafter he made payments sporadically. On 10 October 2024 the father dispensed with the services of his solicitors in the financial proceedings; he has acted in person since then. He did, however, continue for a period to instruct solicitors and counsel within the welfare proceedings.

On 29 November 2024, the FDR was held by Cusworth J (an earlier date having been vacated by Cobb J in order to accommodate the father’s work commitments). This did not lead to a settlement.

On 14 January 2025, the matter once again came before Cobb J. He varied the ‘pound-for-pound order’ so as to prevent the father from incurring fees with any solicitors in respect of both these proceedings and the welfare proceedings until he had paid an equivalent sum to the wife’s solicitors. Various other directions were given, including in respect of disclosure.

On 4 March 2025, I dealt with the pre-trial review. I varied the legal services order so as to increase the amount payable by the father by an additional £62,500 (none of which has been paid). I also made an order for interim child maintenance in the sum of £1,000 per month with which the father has complied. I made orders for replies to schedules of deficiencies to be filed and served by 1 April 2025 and a further order for the father to provide a schedule setting out all fees incurred by him in these proceedings and the welfare proceedings. I also directed statements to be filed, including in respect of the mother’s application under section 423, and that each party should provide to the other particulars of properties contended by them to be suitable to meet the child’s housing needs. I joined the paternal grandfather and the trust as respondents and made provision for them to file statements in response to the mother’s evidence in respect of her section 423 claim.

On 10 April 2025 I conducted a remote hearing at which I refused an application by the father to adjourn this hearing.