Re B (Contact: Child Support) - horses and carts: contact and child support

Stephen Gilmore, King's College, London. The role (if any) that child maintenance should play in decisions as to contact between a child and non-resident parent is controversial. The Court of Appeal has held that before a court determines the level of staying contact to be enjoyed by a parent with a child (or when under a shared residence order it defines the number of nights for which the child should reside in one parent's home and in the other parent's home), it should not have regard to the impact of its determination upon a parent's liability to pay child support to the other under the Child Support Act 1991. This commentary critically examines the court's reasoning, and argues that the Court of Appeal may, in part, have taken an erroneous turn. For the full article see Child and Family Law Quarterly, Vol 19, No 3, 2007.

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