The Family Court frequently has to decide factual disputes between parents. But what is the court supposed to do when the parents cannot even agree that their children exist?
The Family Court recently was faced with a most unusual dispute in the case of AA v ZZ. A former husband, AA, made an application to the court for a child arrangements order so that his ex-wife, ZZ, could be ordered to make their twin children available for contact. Nothing unusual about that normally, but in this case ZZ denied that she had ever had any children. He claimed that she had given birth to twin boys in February 2021, but had placed the children with their uncle. She claimed that his application was abusive; i.e. that it was a form of coercive and controlling behaviour by him.
The court had to decide whether these children actually existed, based on the evidence presented to it. The judge had to make clear in her judgment that the court cannot investigate the matter for them. It decides issues based on the evidence presented to it. It cannot take steps to investigate, although it can order other people to provide information or to take certain steps.
It is fair to say that neither party comes out of this case looking good. The court found that AA had behaved in a controlling manner towards ZZ, albeit that it did not preclude the possibility that the children existed. AA was also found to have forged some of the evidence that he placed before the court in the form of WhatsApp messages he claimed to have received about the children.
ZZ claimed that she had never been pregnant and argued that she had visited her GP during the period when she was supposed to have been pregnant, but her medical records showed no pregnancy. However, there was also evidence that she had contacted a private hospital and made enquiries “about terminations, pregnancy and childbirth”. The hospital said no twins were born there in February 2021, but the judge found that ZZ later contacted the hospital asking for none of her medical records to be stored or shared with the NHS. This evidence pointed to the existence of at least one child. Nevertheless, the General Register Office said it had no trace of births registered between October 2020 and March 2021 to either of the parents’ names.
AA alleged that ZZ had told him that she was pregnant, had seen a midwife, the weight of the babies once they were born and that they looked like him. There was also evidence from people who knew the couple that they had talked about the babies. The judge found that recordings of conversations presented to the court supporting the existence of the children sounded authentic. In one call, about seven months after the twins were supposed to have been born, an old friend of ZZ told AA that the children were with their uncle.
The court decided that on the balance of probabilities that that ZZ had been pregnant in the past and that there was evidence that showed that at least one child may exist.
It never ceases to amaze me as to the steps that some parents will take to prevent the other parent from having contact with a child. I remember a case where the mother had suddenly moved away from the area and the father had no idea where she and their very young child were. When we tracked her down, her solicitor informed me that the mother had moved to live with own mother and that, for reasons that were never explained, led the child to believe that the maternal grandmother was in fact the child’s mother.
I recall another case where a child was placed with a young father, as his mother was unable to cope with caring for the child. The father alleged that the mother then incited a mob to attack the father near his home, by claiming that “he was hurting her baby”. She does not appear to have bothered mentioning to them that the court had decided that it was in their child’s best interests to live with its father for the time being.
There have been other cases recently where a number of mothers have taken their children illegally to Northern Cyprus to prevent the fathers from having contact with the children. They allege that the fathers are abusive and pose a risk to the children, even though in many of the cases the evidence has been considered by the Family Court and an appropriate order made. (See my blog here about this)
This type of behaviour is of course not limited to mothers. I have seen a number of cases over the years where fathers have taken equally reprehensible steps to alienate children from their mothers, often combined with abuse towards the mother.
The Family Court faces a very difficult job in deciding what the facts are and what is in the best interests of children. In this case, the court is hindered by the fact that neither parents is currently legally represented, albeit that they were represented by solicitors and King’s Counsel in the past.
The bizarre case of the phantom children is continuing.
4 August 2024
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