Sandra Davis' Week: Intractable Disputes

The mistake many people make about the Family Justice System is that it is the best forum for the resolution of family disputes. It isn't. 

Speaking at a Families Need Fathers event on 20 September Sir Nicholas Wall said: "People think that post-separation parenting is easy - in fact it is exceedingly difficult and as a rule of thumb my experience is that the more intelligent the parent the more intractable the dispute".

I doubt that intelligence alone is the driver.

Re S (Transfer of Residence) EWHC B19 (Fam) is a case in point. The judgment of HHJ Clifford Bellamy (who was sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court) begins:

"On 21 July 2010 a wholly deserving father left my court in tears having been driven to abandon his battle to implement an order which I had made on 4 January 2010 that his son S now aged 12 should move...