Mr Justice Moor listed no less than 28 divorce petitions for hearing in open Court having had them referred to him from Her Honour Judge Roberts, the lead Judge for divorce in this country.
The catalyst of these referrals to Mr Justice Moor and, consequently, this judgment was the quite striking fact that in the 28 cases before him all had exactly the same particulars of behaviour in each petition:
“For about a year prior to the separation, the respondent would become moody without justification and argumentative towards the petitioner. He/she would behave in this way on at least a couple of days every week, which would cause a lot of tension within the home thereby making the petitioner’s life very uncomfortable.
“During the same period, the respondent would also often ignore the petitioner and decline to communicate with him. He/she would also behave in this way on about two days every week, which would also cause a lot of tension within the home and make the petitioner’s life very difficult.
“The respondent showed no interest in leading the life of a married woman/man for about a year before the separation. For example, he/she would go out socially on his/her own and basically exclude the petitioner from his/her life thereby making him/her feel very dejected.”
The Judge found it “quite impossible” for 28 respondents to have behaved in exactly the same way and therefore concluded they were improper. It transpired that all 28 petitions were drafted and filed by the company, iDivorces, which is an unregulated provider that had been added as an interested party. A Director of iDivorces apologised profusely for this and accepted that it was standard wording used and sent to each petitioner and they were asked if anything was wrong. None of these petitioners made any amendments and the Judge quite simply observes that “as all these particulars are absolutely identical and cannot, therefore, all be true in each of the twenty-eight cases.” All 28 divorce petitions were dismissed.
The Judge also confirmed that although he considered a referral to the Director of Public Prosecutions on the basis that this could potentially amount to the crime of perverting the course of justice – he acknowledges that iDivorces has apologised in Court and confirmed that it will never happen again. The Judge concluded that there would be an insufficient public benefit in referring these cases to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but, with the clear warning that should it happen again, he would have no hesitation in making such a referral.
How Nelsons can help
Layla Babadi is a Legal Director in our Family Law team.
If you need advice on any divorce-related matter or have any other family law-related queries, please contact us and we will be happy to discuss your circumstances in more detail and give you more information about the services that our family law solicitors can provide along with details of our hourly rates and fixed fee services.
Layla can be contacted on 0800 024 1976 or via our online enquiry form.
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