A judge in the UK High Court has ruled there is ‘some evidence’ that an infant was born as a separated couple battled over the child’s existence in a case described as ‘unusual and complex’.
Lady Emma Arbuthnot was presiding over a case where the applicant, referred to as ‘Mr A’, sought a child arrangements order to what he believed to be his twin sons – supposedly born in 2021. The court heard how Mr A was the father of the boys, and that the mother ‘Miss ZZ’ denied giving birth to the children.
Mr A produced evidence of the pregnancy, including an ultrasound scan, documents relating to the babies and recordings where Miss ZZ had spoken of the children. Mr A also handed over his phone for forensic examination.
Mr A told the court he believed his ex-wife had been pregnant when they had separated.
Lady Arbuthnot said there was ‘strong evidence’ there was a pregnancy and ‘some evidence’ a child had been born, Mr A is now applying for contact with the child.
Forum Shah, partner at Dawson Cornwell, said:
“This is a very interesting case which highlights the extremely complex and unusual scenarios the Family Court often has to grapple with and how difficult it can be when the court has to additionally deal with two litigants in person. Of course, we don’t know whether these individuals elected to represent themselves or whether this is a case where legal aid wasn’t available to them. The lack of legal representation in private law proceedings is not uncommon and the court is currently devising procedures and practices to address this.”
Hilka Hollmann, partner at Dawson Cornwell, commented, saying:
“One such example is the Pathfinder model, which aims to frontload cases with professional and judicial input and enquiries, including talking with the children. However, in this case, such measures would be ineffective considering that the court doesn’t even know where the child is and the mother denies there ever was a child. It remains to be seen what happens next.”
