[2025] EWHC 1460 (Fam)

Both of the parents gave oral evidence to the court at this hearing.

I found the mother to be essentially truthful as a witness, although it was evident that, with considerable justification, she is clearly bitter about the manner in which the father has treated her since their relationship ended. She also harbours considerable suspicions about his disclosure and his motivation for having taken various financial steps in the recent past; justifiably so, in my view.

In one relatively significant respect, however, I do consider that the mother has not been frank with the court. During the course of her evidence, it transpired that her partner, Mr C, had emailed an estate agent to make an offer on her behalf to purchase a property in the Hove area for £350,000. The email in question referred to the mother as having funds to contribute towards the purchase in the sum of £240,000. It also emerged that the mother had approached mortgage lenders and been able to obtain offers in principle to borrow a low six figure sum.

During cross-examination by the father, the mother sought to explain that the sum of £240,000 was not money held personally by her; it was as sum which her parents had agreed to lend to her. She said that her discussions with her parents arose in the context of the father’s diminished financial support and in circumstances where her parents were significantly worried as to her ability to house herself. I accept this evidence. I also accept her evidence that the property in respect of which she made an offer did not represent that she which considered to be a suitable home for herself and P; rather it was priced at the maximum level she could afford, with help from her parents and a mortgage, and her interest in making a purchase was driven by desperation. I do not, however, accept the mother’s claim in her oral evidence that she never in fact made a serious offer and that she was merely exploring options. That assertion is inconsistent with the terms of the email in question.

I also find that the mother has underplayed the state of her relationship with Mr C. Whilst I accept that the two of them have not yet reached a stage where they are cohabiting full-time, the fact that the email to the agent making the offer to purchase a property was sent by him (as opposed to the mother) and was expressed in terms that suggested that the offer was being made by the two of them jointly (‘we’), does, in my view, suggest that their relationship is more serious than the mother has been prepared to admit. I consider it likely that the two of them will begin cohabitation at some stage in the foreseeable future.

I should also record that it is hugely regrettable that the father produced the email from Mr C to the agent for the first time during his cross-examination of the mother. I allowed him to do so, as he was putting questions to the mother which led to her giving answers to the effect that his questions must be based upon an email which he had obtained improperly. It became artificial to exclude the source material from evidence when the mother was giving evidence in relation to it. At the PTR I had made an order debarring the father from making reference to the mother’s private emails with third parties which had not previously been disclosed in these proceedings. As it happens, this email was not caught by that order, as it was sent to the agent by Mr C, rather than by the mother. I strongly suspect that the email was – as the mother suggests – improperly obtained by the father, but I did not explore this in any detail and make no finding.

I have accepted the mother’s explanation for the £240,000 referred to in the email and her reasons for offering to buy a property at a much lower level than that for which she now contends. I do not, however, accept the submission by Mr Purkis that there was no obligation on the mother to disclose this information within these proceedings. I find that her previous offer to buy a property, her ability to obtain a mortgage and the willingness of her parents to lend her money were all matter of relevance which needed to be disclosed by her pursuant to her duty of full and frank disclosure. Her ability to borrow money from her parents was plainly relevant to her application for a legal funding order. Mr Purkis’s contrary argument was based upon there being a distinction between an offer to lend money for a property purchase and for litigation purposes. Maybe so, but this was a matter for the court to evaluate; by withholding the information the mother impeded the court in the fulfilment of its functions. Additionally, as it now transpires, the mother’s parents have been willing to lend her money for her legal fees, making the averred distinction somewhat artificial.

So far as the father is concerned, I should first of all record that he was at all times courteous with the court both in his evidence and when he addressed the court in submissions. He is clearly a highly intelligent man whose skills have brought him substantial success in business. I also accept, as he told me, that he loves his son dearly. I regret to say, however, that in the main I found his evidence to be profoundly unsatisfactory. I find that he has failed to provide full and frank disclosure of his resources in these proceedings.

Although the father sought to avoid telling outright lies when giving his evidence, his presentation was at best disingenuous and, at least in some respects, dishonest. He sought to shield himself by the ownership structures into which he has placed his assets in order to justify his assertion that he is a man of limited means who cannot afford to meet the mother’s claims. In so doing, I find that he has concealed from the court the reality of his position. I also find that his suggestion that the offers made to settle these proceedings emanate entirely from ‘his father’ or ‘his family’, as he sometimes put it in his evidence, is a complete charade. Whilst the author of the offers may be the paternal grandfather, their content has clearly been driven by father. Why else, I ask myself, would they include provisions which require the mother to compromise the welfare proceedings in terms sought by the father?

The father accepted, as he was bound to do, that he had not disclosed the full amount paid by the purchaser of his business (‘G’) by declining to reveal the amount received by the company BD s.r.o. (then wholly owned by him) which had owned 45% of the G shares (I address this further below). The father’s explanation for adopting this stance was that he was prevented from revealing the information by the terms of a non-disclosure agreement or ‘NDA’ he had concluded with the purchaser. I am unable to accept this explanation for the following reasons:

I find that the true reason the father has been unwilling to disclose the amount paid to his company (beyond telling me in submissions that it amounted to ‘millions’) is a desire to conceal this information from the mother and the court. He is likely to have appreciated that the scale of the sum paid would completely undermine the case he has advanced both as to the true scale of his resources but also in relation to the fundamental purpose of the T Trust.

I have given myself a R v Lucas direction about the father’s evidence and reminded myself in particular that the fact that he has been untruthful about certain matters does not mean that I should reject everything he says.