(Court of Appeal; Buxton, Wall and Wilson LJJ; 4 April 2008)
In a case in which the father applied to have contact increased from 40% to 50%, and for a shared residence order, the judge should have heard both issues together, but have ruled first on the appropriate division of time, going on separately to consider whether the appropriate division of time should be expressed as a shared residence or a contact order. The court was to be alert to any malign intent on the part of a parent to use an application for a shared residence order to interfere with the other parent's role in relation to child, but no such intent had been established on the father's part. Although the contact time would not be increased, a shared residence order was appropriate.
