The proposals announced by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith that have called for more work on keeping families together, and ways to make it harder for couples to divorce, have also called for and end to the public celebrity divorce case in London.
This is after many celebrities have flocked to London to take part in their public, and often bitter, divorce cases. The plans Iain Duncan Smith has put together also call for restrictions on the financial awards that court judges are able to give out, and the control they have on granting custody and access to children.
This move by the Tories follows the recent high profile cases such as Heather Mills’ £24.3 million award from her divorce with former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, and the public custody wrangle between Guy Ritchie and Madonna that has seen Ritchie hiring the country’s best children’s lawyer.
The problem with the legal system as it stands, claims Iain Duncan Smith, is that the divorce courts are too adversarial, meaning that children and finances are being used as pawns by warring divorce lawyers. Iain Duncan Smith stated:
There is so much leeway around what a judge will decide on. That allows huge territory for the legal profession to have a field day.
You don’t normally associate divorce lawyers with match makers, but law form Pannone recently played cupid to many of its divorce customers, in an attempt to find divorcee love.
120 divorce clients of the legal form were invited to meet up in a matchmaking ‘date’ of sorts in a bar in Manchester. The dating forum wasn’t just to find love for the clients, Pannone also wanted to showcase their other services.
The unlikely group date took place in a Manchester bar called Panacea, a bar that describes itself as:
A unique setting for any occasion, where day melds seamlessly into night.
Whether any matches were made isn’t sure, as the results were completely confidential, but if anyone did find romance from the event, you can be sure that they kept a card for Pannone just in case!
The family law section at Pannone was a growth area at the beginning of the year, which made a hefty contribution to the legal firm’s six year turnover of £27 million.
The recently announced split between British film director Guy Ritchie and pop queen Madonna may seem bad news for them, but for one person, the divorce has proved good news. Guy Ritchie’s father, John, is pleased with the news that his son is to divorce Madonna, according to film news website imdb.com.
Madonna and Guy are currently in the middle of a divorce, and both have lined up heavyweight divorce lawyers to fight their corner. The news of the split wouldn’t please most parents, but Guy’s father has a different outlook on the news. When asked about his son’s divorce John stated:
He has been in a very good mood.
I wasn’t upset that they parted. I am very pleased for Guy that it is all over.
According to the news report, John believes that his son will be successful in preventing Madonna taking the couple’s children back to the United States to live. The couple are currently locked in a bitter custody battle over their two children, Rocco and David, and Madonna’s son Lourdes who she had with a previous relationship.
Carol Williams sued her divorce lawyers over her huge £1.4 million divorce settlement, claiming that the money she received wasn’t enough. However she has lost her case against her lawyers, and has been branded a liar in court. As a result she’s lost almost all of the money that she won in her divorce settlement.
The judge ruled that Williams was an unreliable witness and had attempted to hide her affair from a singing teacher during her divorce case.
She has reportedly lost most of her payout on legal fees totalling £400,000, and on ill-advised property investments, succumbing to the current financial crisis in the housing market.
Carol Williams accepted the payout from her husband John in 2000, and was awarded £1.4 million. Three months after she accepted the money the House of Lords ruled that wives could receive larger payouts from their husband’s wealth, prompting Carol Williams to sue her divorce lawyers for poor advice. She says they should have warned her of the impending ruling. However they claim that she wanted a quick settlement and favoured the £1.4 million settlement offer.
Judge Justice Field stated:
Regrettably, I am obliged to record that I found Mrs Williams to be a profoundly unreliable witness.
Her evidence was self-serving, evasive and, on occasion, knowingly untruthful.
The evidence is overwhelming that Mrs Williams was determined to have a clean break from her husband who had controlled and humiliated her over many years.
In her eyes, her husband was ruthless and she knew that if she postponed the negotiations he would be furious and likely to fight her every inch of the way, a prospect she was very anxious to avoid.
Carol Williams invested £1.1 million from her settlement into buy-to-let properties; however they have all now been repossessed.
The Tory party are planning reforms to make it more difficult to divorce, and to ensure that when families do divorce, children don’t contact with either parent and their grandparents. The conservatives are also planning to make pre-nuptial agreements legally binding, as currently in the UK they are not.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has drawn up the plans for David Cameron, who is expected to back the plans put forward.
The report from IDS (as he is affectionately known in the Tory party) has come at a very timely moment in the wake of the death of Baby P.
Iain Duncan Smith stated:
Today, 25 percent of children in this country live in single parent families and this trend is set to accelerate. These children are three to six times more likely to experience abuse. A recent US study found that children living with a non-biological adult are 50 times more likely to die from afflicted injuries than those living with their biological parents.
The report also proposes classes so that couples are encouraged to wed, blaming informal cohabitation relationships for family breakdown.
She may have appeared in an infamous and ill advised video on YouTube some time ago with Pete Doherty pleading with her husband Blake not to divorce her, but is Amy about to file for divorce herself?
According to sources, Amy Winehouse is looking to divorce her husband after he’s released from prison, as she’s worried about the amount he would receive if he filed for divorce. Amy has an estimated £10 million fortune, and Blake would be entitled to a sizable share of that if rumours of Amy’s unfaithfulness were proven true.
The news comes after Blake reportedly asked Amy to pay for his rehab, a sum totalling £30,000.
According to the News of the World, a source close to Amy has stated:
The family saw a solicitor this week. Amy fears Blake’s just after her money.
Amy woke up and smelt the roses when Blake tried to get her to pay the 30,000 pounds rehab bill.
Lawyers said Blake stands little chance of getting a huge pay-out.
For the first time ever Amy has her mind on the notion of divorce. All her family and friends are delighted.
It’s a well known stereotype that Italians are very virile, but one 91-year-old man has been taking that stereotype to whole new levels. The man, from the Bay of Naples, has issued divorce proceedings against his 60-year-old wife after she accused him of cheating on her.
The couple met almost twenty years prior, after his first wife died. His new bride worked a potato picker on his farm, a farm that he made a fortune from allowing him to own his own hotel in Naples.
The divorce request from the husband hasn’t been contested by the wife, but she has requested that he pay her alimony, and she be allowed to remain in the marital home.
Having committed adultery the husband would have a difficult time fighting her request, and would most likely end up paying a substantial amount to his ex-wife once the financial settlement has been decided.
When the case reaches court next week the fate will be in the hands of the divorce lawyers and the judge.
When you remarry as a divorcee, it’s generally accepted that you are actually a divorcee. However a man from Derry has just been fined £600 for committing bigamy after he admitted getting married to a woman, when he was already married.
Louis Guille admitted bigamy as he had married a woman on July 23rd 2004, but was still married to a woman from over 20 years previous. In 1977 Gulle married another woman, but separated just two years later. However the first wife refused to grant him a divorce in all that time, so when he remarried in 2004 he was committing bigamy.
George Copeland is his defence lawyer, he explained the extenuating circumstances surrounding the bigamy case:
His first wife went back to England. That was over 20 years ago. He tried to get her to consent to a divorce but she refused to sign the divorce papers.
He should have gone through the process of irretrievable breakdown without her consent on the basis that they were separated for a minimum of five years. He broke the law. He met another woman and they fell in love and foolishly got married before he divorced his first wife.
It seems hard to believe, but a couple in Milan are facing a potential jail term for the psychological damage they’ve inflicted upon their son with their divorce. The ground breaking case is thought to be the first of its type throughout Europe. Prosecutors have requested that the couple be charged with mistreating a minor, their twelve-year-old son.
According to the charges, the arguments and hostile atmosphere created by the warring parents induced a feeling of anxiety and depression within their son. As a result the child left school after falling behind with his work. The prosecution was raised after the findings of a health visitor, who claimed the child was disturbed.
The magistrate presiding over the case said that the couple had fought in front of their child, affecting his psychological state.
According to the prosecution:
Each blamed the other for shortcoming and educational errors in bringing up the child.
Each parent, it went on, tried to discredit, devalue and undermine the other in front of the child and “project their emotions on to him - above all, anger.
The judge will decide in the coming months whether the case will go to trial.
Among the most common reasons for divorce are adultery and irreconcilable differences. One reason that isn’t particularly common is when the wife has spots! However a man in Mumbai recently divorced his wife for that very reason, claiming he was traumatized while on honeymoon by the sudden outbreak of acne on her face.
Incredibly the court was on the man’s side, even quoting:
The repulsive condition of the wife is undoubtedly tragic for the wife but this is traumatic for the spouse.
The family court went further to rule that the woman fraudulently married the man when she didn’t notify him of her illness.
The woman played a fraud on him (the husband) by not disclosing the fact that she had a disease.
Recently though the Bombay high court expunged the ruling, which provided some relief for the wife. The marriage had been an arranged marriage, and the wife developed the condition while on honeymoon, resulting in the husband being unable to consummate the marriage.
The spots on the woman’s face had burst, and were also smelly, according to the husband. He was angered that she had suffered from the disease since childhood, but had concealed it from him until their wedding night.
