Guidance on protection of domestic abuse victims in remote hearings The President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, has published guidance on the need to protect victims of domestic abuse in remote and hybrid court hearings. Remote hearings, where all parties take part via telephone or video link, and hybrid hearings, where some parties […]

Report on Medical Experts in the Family Courts A report has been published on the subject of medical expert witnesses in the family courts. The report was commissioned by the President of the Family Division Sir Andrew McFarlane in 2018 in response to concerns over shortages of medical experts prepared to be involved in family […]

New survey into the operation of remote hearings The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, which observes and reports upon the workings of the family justice system, has undertaken a new survey into the operation of remote court hearings. Remote hearings, via telephone or video link, have been widely adopted in the family court in response to […]

President warns of crisis in family courts The President of the Family Division Sir Andrew McFarlane has warned that the crisis in the family courts due to their high caseload were not going away, and are getting worse. Speaking at a meeting of the Family Justice Council, whose primary role is to promote an inter-disciplinary […]

Barrister prohibited from acting in children case The High Court has dismissed an appeal by a father involved in proceedings concerning arrangements for his daughter, against an order prohibiting his barrister from accepting further instructions from him in those proceedings.  The court had made the order because of acrimony between the barrister and the mother, […]

Bill introduced to ban marriage for under-18s An MP has introduced a Private Members’ Bill calling for the minimum age of marriage to be changed to 18, with no exceptions.  Currently the legal minimum age of marriage is 16, but children aged under 18 must have parental consent. Pauline Latham, Conservative MP for Mid Derbyshire, […]

Child Maintenance Service statistics The Department for Work and Pensions (‘DWP’) has published the latest statistics for the Child Maintenance Service (‘CMS’), for the quarter to June 2020. The statistics show that there are now 741,200 children covered by CMS arrangements, 474,700 through Direct Pay arrangements (where the CMS calculates the amount of maintenance to […]

Lockdown surge in male domestic abuse victims Male domestic abuse charities have reported a rise of up to 60% in men seeking their help during the lockdown.  Respect, the helpline for male victims of domestic abuse, said it had received 13,812 calls and emails between April and July in lockdown, compared to 8,648 in the […]

Prince Family Law has grown in size and reputation to become one of the leading specialist Family Law Practices in South Yorkshire and the East Midlands. We are looking to further expand both our Chesterfield and Sheffield offices and have vacancies for two Solicitors / Legal Executives to join our highly experienced legal team. This […]

Children’s Commissioner warning over vulnerable children Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has warned that vulnerable children who require urgent support will “slip out of view” because of the impact of coronavirus. Ms Longfield said: “After the school six-week holidays it’s always the case that there are spikes in referrals to social services for […]