[2025] EWHC 2395 (Fam)

Fecha: 26-Ago-2025

SUBMISSIONS

20.

In his written representations regarding costs, the father relies on the following submissions with respect to his application for a costs order and a pro bono costs order as being indicative of the mother’s unreasonable and reprehensible conduct with respect to the litigation:

In his judgment of 9 July 2024, Mr Justice Francis apportioned full responsibility for the litigation concerning Adam to the mother.

ii)

The proceedings were triggered by the attempted abduction of Adam by the mother. The mother subjected the father to harassment, threats, coercive force and defiance of court orders.

iii)

The mother fraudulently let out the father’s flat to people in May 2024, which left him needing to deal with trespassers in my property on top of engaging in further litigation following the last abduction of Adam.

iv)

Prior to the current proceedings, the father had spent more than £100,000 in legal expenses, bringing his total expenditure consequent upon the litigation between the parties in excess of £200,000.

In these proceedings the mother knowingly and deliberately used litigation to cause the father expense, wielding costs as a weapon and openly threatening the father in writing. In her email of 15 March 2022, the mother threatened that the father “will have to pay thousands to a lawyer to dealing with financial case that will be brought against you” and in her email of 29 August 2023 stated that “I will make you pay thousands in the courts and to the lawyers, I promise.”

vi)

The mother deliberately weaponised the cost of litigation to cause the father stress and anxiety, to pressure the father to agree to her demands and dissuade the father from seeking remedy through the courts against her various breaches and abuses. The Mother was prepared to gamble that she could make unmeritorious applications against the father and that the onerous costs of litigation would cause him to accede to her wishes.

vii)

The mother’s abductions in 2022, 2023 and 2024 were significant drivers of cost for the father consequent upon the mother’s attempts to evade and undermine the legal proceedings.

viii)

The Mother was legally aided during proceedings in 2020, and for most of the present proceedings. In both cases, her Legal Aid was obtained by means of making false allegations of domestic abuse.

ix)

The police search for Adam from June 2024 to February 2025 consumed considerable public resources. The mother’s abuse of process, of public services and the protections in place for real victims of domestic abuse compounds the mother’s abuse of the father and his family and the professionals involved in Adam’s care.

An order for the father’s pro bono costs to be paid to the AJF, in addition to the costs order made in favour of the father, would serve to address the foregoing matters to some degree, and would send an important message to the mother and serve as a wider deterrent against the use of false allegations to gain tactical advantage in family litigation.

xi)

In light of her established deficit of credibility, the Mother will not put forward a truthful account of her own ability to pay, given her persistent lack of truthfulness with the court. Whatever account the mother provides as to her financial position cannot be relied upon.

xii)

Whilst the position with respect to affordability is not entirely clear, the mother has been able to take Adam abroad repeatedly, holding him in Oman, and then in Northeast London, for sustained periods of time. Francis J observed that the mother’s capacity to travel to expensive destinations like Oman or Paris is inconsistent with her being entitled to Legal Aid. The mother has stated in her written evidence that her partner, with whom she lives, is successful in his career as a Senior Vice President / Chief Commercial Officer and she has stated that she has access to a family inheritance once her passports are returned to her, as they now have been.

iii)

In the circumstances, the court can reasonably conclude that the Mother has access to ample enough resources to comfortably meet her daily living needs without her needing to work, and that those resources also enable her to satisfy costs order made against her.

21.

The mother responded to the costs application by way of submitting a document entitled “Witness Statement of the mother in opposition to costs application and to provide factual clarification” and a Skeleton Argument dated 21 May 2025. Whilst I bear in mind that the mother is a litigant in person, those documents are further symptomatic of the mother’s overall approach to this litigation in that they sought to re-argue the entirety of the case, the mother using the father’s application for costs as a further opportunity to raise allegations against him and his solicitors. In so far as the document addresses the issue of costs, the mother makes the following submissions:

The father has no legal basis to seek legal costs from the mother in circumstances where it was the father who commenced these and earlier proceedings, with the mother only filing applications in response. The mother acted defensively and not as the primary instigator of the litigation.

ii)

The mother has made multiple genuine attempts to reach an amicable agreement with the father in order to bring the proceedings to an end but those efforts were consistently and unreasonably rejected by the father, who instead continued to escalate the matter and pursue excessive litigation, including over thirty without notice applications.

iii)

The mother is not seeking any costs for the proceedings commenced by the father since 2020.

iv)

The mother has suffered procedural disadvantage.

The mother is homeless and lacks financial means, in contrast to the father who she submits earns over £10,000 per month and has failed to pay child maintenance.