B v B (Ancillary Relief)
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] NIMaster 2 |
| Court | High Court (Northern Ireland) |
| Date | 26 February 2019 |
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Neutral Citation No: [2019] NIMaster 2
Judgme nt: approved by the Court for handing dow n
(subject to editorial corrections)*
Ref: 2019NIMASTER2
Delivered: 26/02/2019
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE OF NORTHERN IR ELAND
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FAMILY DIVISION
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BETWEEN:
B
Petitioner;
and
B
(Ancillary R elief)
Respondent.
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Master Bell
INTRODUC TION
[1] In this appli cation the petitioner (to whom I shall refer, for ease of
reference, as “the wife”) seeks Ancillary Relief pursuant to a summons dated
21 July 2017.
[2] I have anonymise d thi s jud gment for the reaso n that it requires me to
deal with a number of health issues in connection with members of the family
and it would therefore be inappropriate to identify the family concerned. The
parties are requested to consider the terms of this judgment and to inform the
Matrimonial Office in writing within two weeks as to whether there is any
reason why the judgment should not be published on the JudiciaryNI website
in this form or whether it req uires any further anonymisation prior to
publication. If the Office is not so informed within that timescale then it will
be publishe d in its pres ent form.
[3] In this case I had the benefit of help ful written and oral submissions by
the respondent (to whom I shall re fer for ease of reference as “the husband”),
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who appeared as a personal litigant, and by Miss Trainor on behalf of the
wife.
[4] I note that the husband submitted a medical report dated 12 June 2018
from Professo r Miller. That re port dealt with the husband’s capacity to act as
a litigant in pers on and co ncluded:
“It is my opinion that the recognisable psychiatric illness noted
above is not of a severity that renders a substantial and
significant impairment of his ability to adequately follow,
process and understand the legal proceedings in an absolute
manner. As is common there will be a fluctuation and variation
depending on environment. However there is a substantial
degree of higher executive impairment, which will be
predictably worsened in an advers arial setting and where there
is triggering of posttraumatic material. Given that he is dealing
with highly personal areas of his li fe and that his former partner
is in apparent conflict with him, this presents a potential
impairment in his capacity in respect of the following areas:
following the course of the proceedings and giving evidence in
his own defence .”
[5] The husband so ught to have a McKenzie friend to assist him in court
and I readily agreed to the application. In the light of Professo r Miller’s rep ort
I was careful to observe whether he became upset or agitated in any way
during the two sessions which the hearing of this case required. From my
perspective the husband was nothing other than cal m, courteous and poli te in
the courtro om e nvironme nt and I had no concerns that his health issues we re
affecting his pe rformance. When it came to him giving oral evid ence I
allo wed him to use the written summary which he had prepared in advance
of the hearing.
[6] An affidavit was filed by the wi fe on 11 May 2018 for the p urpose of
these proceedings. An affidavit was also filed by the hu sband on 15 June 2018.
[7] At the hearing both parties gave oral evidence and each adopted their
own affid avit as part of the ir e vide nce to the court.
[8] As is often the case with personal litigants, who may lack a knowledge
of the rules on the admissibility of evidence, the husband submitted a number
of documents o f which I can take no account because they did not comply
with Order 38 Rule 2 of the Rules of the Court of Judicature. In particular I
mentio n three statements from hi s brothe r, his sister, and a fami ly frie nd.
These were signed but did not come in the form of sworn affidavits. His
brother subsequently gave sworn oral evidence about whether or not he and
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