[2025] EWHC 2637 (Fam)

I begin by saying that the father was courteous when he gave his evidence and conducted himself appropriately in the witness box. It is also relevant to record that, as the PNC document demonstrates, he has no criminal convictions. In order to obtain and retain his taxi licence he has been subject to vetting procedures from time to time.

By contrast with the mother, the father has lived in England since 1980. He has run a successful business for many years and will be accustomed to dealing with authorities such as the local council in connection with his business. As I find, he has also previously been involved in family law proceedings involving his late wife and AD. Nevertheless, I accept that coming to court and giving evidence in these proceedings is likely to have been an enormously stressful experience for him, given what is at stake.

The father does have a reasonable ability to understand and speak English but he is not fluent in the language and, in common with the mother, he gave his evidence in Urdu through an interpreter. As with the mother, some of the nuances of his evidence may well have been lost in translation.

By contrast with the mother’s evidence, in answering questions the father had a tendency to give long, rambling answers which were often irrelevant to the question he had been asked. I give limited weight, however, to the generally unsatisfactory manner in which he gave his evidence. A number of the questions put to the father were long and/or required passages from his statement to be translated; my feeling was that the length of the questions and the process of interpreting them was, at least in part, the cause of the length of some of his answers.

There were regular exchanges between the father and the interpreter where the father would interrupt the interpreter if he felt that her interpretation did not accurately reflect what he wished to say. There were, however, some occasions when clear questions were put to the father repeatedly which he failed to answer. In my judgement, on these occasions the father was seeking to avoid the questions asked.

Having made every possible allowance for the father, I regret to say that that I found his evidence to be wholly unsatisfactory. In my judgement he lied repeatedly and about matters of central significance to the issues in the case. As I recorded above, I have given myself a Lucas direction and reminded myself in particular that the fact that a witness lies about one matter does not mean that I should reject his evidence about other matters.

Regrettably, in addition to telling lies, I also find that the father has forged documents, coached A into making false allegations against her mother and procured witnesses to tell lies on his behalf. These are all serious matters which inevitably have an impact upon his credibility.

Having given myself the Lucas direction, I have been driven to the conclusion that the extent of the father’s lies and the scale of his dishonesty is such that I am unable to rely upon anything he says which is not corroborated with evidence from other sources.

As Lucas reminds me, the fact that the father has told lies does not mean that the allegations to which the lies relate are true. The burden of proof remains at all times on the person or authority advancing a particular allegation.