Judge Stephen Wildblood QC has labelled recent financial remedy proceedings of a divorcing couple as a “disgraceful example of how financial remedy proceedings should not be conducted,” describing the proceedings as “feral, unprincipled, and unnecessarily expensive.”
According to Wildblood J, it “should have been simple” to resolve the dispute, which concerned a matrimonial pot of assets worth approximately £730,000. However, matters were complicated by the wife’s “dogmatic pursuit” of speculative (and in Wildblood J’s words, “hopeless”) claims that her ex-husband had beneficial interests in other properties, and the husband’s “dishonest portrayal” of his own circumstances. Both husband and wife were found to have lied in parts of their evidence.
Ultimately, the parties, including other respondents who were sued by the wife, are now left with legal fees disproportionate to the case, summing to over £200,000. In Wildblood’s opinion, the wife will be held responsible for three of these respondent’s costs on top of her own. This has raised questions about the quality of the legal advice received by the wife – as Wildblood J puts it at the end of his judgement, “the wife may wish to take advice about why her case was presented in this way and why so much expense has been incurred.”
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With thanks to Gemma Wright.