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Children Act 1989 (Child Arrangement Orders and more) – How can you try to persuade the court that your proposal is in the child's best interests?

Date:14 APR 2015
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Nasstassia Hylton 1 Garden Court

In February 2015 the National Audit Office reported a 22% increase in cases involving contact with children and a 30% increase across all family court cases in which neither party had legal representation.

Therefore when you attend the family court to represent yourself in Children Act cases you need to be prepared to justify your case to the court when you are up against a variety of opponents (including barristers solicitors legal executives your ex partner or a family member).

There is likely to be emotion involved because of the significance of the issues concerned. However the important thing to remember regardless of who your opponent is is that the court will want to hear your presented case in a clear and practical manner that has the welfare of the child at the heart of it.

That is easy to say but how do you go about presenting this to the court?

This first thing to remember is that the child's welfare is the court's paramount consideration (Children Act 1989 s 1). Therefore when you are...

Read the full article here.