FD25P00113 - [2025] EWHC 2670 (Fam)

The applicant wife is a Moroccan national. She is [X] years old. She qualified as a physiotherapist in Morocco but needs to requalify here. She does not work and is publicly funded. She speaks and writes fluent French and Arabic (Moroccan dialect). Her English is limited. The husband is a Moroccan, French and British national. He was born in France. He is [X] years old. He has lived in the UK since 2012. He has a full-time job earning c £3,500 pcm net. He is paying privately. He does not read or write Arabic (but can speak Arabic). He gave his evidence in English.

The parties married in an arranged marriage in Morocco on 21 February 2022. The families had a distant family connection. After the wedding the father returned to England to apply for the mother’s visa. The mother’s visa arrived two months later. The father travelled to Morocco to collect her and they returned to England together. I understand that she arrived on a fiancée visa which was then converted to a spousal visa. This was a second marriage for the husband. He was previously married to an American from whom he divorced with no financial claims being made against each other in 2016. There were no children of that marriage.

According to the advice from the immigration lawyer, the mother was granted leave to remain in the UK on 7 June 2022. That leave expired on 4 January 2025.

There is a dispute about the nature of the marriage. The mother says she was subject to coercive control, particularly in relation to finance. The father denies the allegations.

A was born in spring 2024 in town X. He has a British passport. He has been registered with the Moroccan authorities.

The parties purchased a mortgaged property home in [X] in December 2023 It is in the father’s sole name.

The key issues in dispute relate to events at the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.

The parents and A travelled to Morocco in December 2024. It is agreed that the tickets were one-way and that no date had been set for a return, the father saying in his statement that the date of when she would return was left “up in the air”. It is also agreed that the mother’s visa expired on 4 January 2025.

The father’s case is that he had told the mother he wanted a divorce in September 2024; that the mother had asked him to delay the proceedings until December 2024 when they were in Morocco and that she intended to remain in Morocco after December 2024. The mother’s case is that she believed that they were going on holiday and she had no intention of either divorcing in Morocco or remaining there. She was shocked when she received the divorce papers.

After arrival it is agreed that the father retained A’s British passport and left it with his grandmother. He says that this was not done for the purpose of stranding.

The father issued divorce proceedings on 26 December 2024 by attending alone at court. The proceedings are ongoing. The father says that the mother was aware he was issuing proceedings; the mother says she did not know of the divorce until she was served with notice of the Petition on 13 January 2025. The application for the divorce was on the basis of “discord”. It is possible to divorce consensually in Morocco but the father elected the alternative route.

The father returned to England on 30 December 2024 leaving his wife and child behind.

I deal with the period of time after 30 December later in the judgment.

The mother’s visa expired in January 2025. She cannot return to live in this jurisdiction. Advice has been received from an immigration joint expert. She has advised that the preferential option for return for the mother would be to apply for indefinite leave to enter as a victim of transnational abandonment. The mother could “as a matter of last resort” apply outside of the rules relying it appears on a need to return to this jurisdiction to deal with these proceedings. That option is clearly more difficult and would result in short term leave. The mother cannot apply under a tourist visa as she would be required to declare that she intends to leave the country at the end of her visit.

In response to a question from the court the immigration expert confirmed that the mother would need the assistance of the father to obtain a new spousal visa. But once the father had left the mother behind in Morocco and had issued divorce proceedings the mother could not have applied as it is a requirement of the rules that the marriage is genuine and subsisting.