Caroline Louise Hopkins v William Ian Hopkins
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Cusworth |
| Judgment Date | 26 March 2015 |
| Neutral Citation | [2015] EWHC 812 (Fam) |
| Court | Family Division |
| Date | 26 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | Case No: FD12D00906 |
[2015] EWHC 812 (Fam)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Nicholas Cusworth QC
(SITTING AS A DEPUTY HIGH COURT JUDGE)
Case No: FD12D00906
Nicholas Francis QC AND Richard Bates (instructed by Stokes Partnership) for the Applicant
Richard Todd QC AND Michael Bradley (instructed by Payne Hicks Beach) for the Respondent
Hearing dates: 9 th– 13 th, 16 th March 2015
Mr Cusworth QC:
Mr and Mrs Hopkins were married on 18 th April 2009. They separated in August or September 2011, and Mrs Hopkins has told me that as far as she was concerned, their marriage was effectively over some 6 months earlier than that. These proceedings began in January 2013, and have now cost the parties a combined figure of £758,654. In addition to the provision contained in an agreement which they signed in August 2011, and which she has received but for the implementation of an agreed pension sharing order, Mrs Hopkins sought by her position statement a further £2million. Her husband offers her a sum of £200,000 in addition to such provision. Thus, at trial, in purely financial terms, their costs have taken up over 42% of the issue, between the parties.
The reason for this unhappy situation is that the parties' August 2011 agreement, which describes itself as 'Post-Nuptial', purports to limit and define appropriate provision in the event of marital breakdown between the parties. It was an agreement arrived at between them in principle in the spring of 2011, just over 5 months after the landmark decision of Radmacher (formerly Granatino) v Granatino [2010] UKSC 427 was handed down in the Supreme Court. It is Mrs Hopkins' case that this agreement 'is vitiated by duress; alternatively unconscionable conduct such as undue pressure (falling short of duress); alternatively other unworthy conduct, such as exploitation of a dominant position to secure unfair advantage'. The court is asked to take into account Mrs Hopkins' 'emotional state and what pressures she was under to agree'. Her Counsel also argue questions of fairness and need that will be dealt with later.
Thus it will be clear that the background to the making of this agreement, and the circumstances of the whole relationship between the parties that preceded it, have of necessity been the subject of close scrutiny over the course of the 3 days of evidence and 3 hours of closing submissions which I have heard. Both parties have given evidence to me and were in court throughout. I have also had the opportunity of reading a transcript of the entirety of the wife's evidence, which was provided to me by Counsel after the conclusion of their submissions. Neither party called any other witness to support their respective cases, which has meant that I have no reason to doubt or challenge any of the statements or assertions made by others and recorded in the case papers before me. The detailed background is helpfully set out in an agreed chronology which runs to some 20 pages. What I set out here is only what seems to me the most pertinent to the issues which I have had to decide.
Relevant Background. Mr Hopkins (whom I shall refer to as 'the husband' for the rest of this judgment), is 66, and Mrs Hopkins ('the wife') is 62. They have known each other for a long time. They first met when the husband was around 28 and the wife 25, and were both then otherwise married and with young children from those relationships. They commenced what the wife's former solicitor has described as a 'clandestine' affair, at a time when the husband was still living with his first wife and the wife was living with another man, having separated from her first husband. During that relationship, the parties never cohabited, but did have a son, William, born on 7 th September 1981. Both parties already had 2 older children each by that time in their respective marriages.
During 1981, while the wife was pregnant, the husband acquired a run-down house (91 Brook Street) in his sole name, for her and her children to live in. He also provided for some work to be done on the property. The wife also made a contribution to this. The relationship between them ended in 1982 or 1983, and the husband remained living with his then wife Anne. In 1986, the wife married for a second time, to a man named Peter Griffiths, who had moved into 91 Brook Street to live with her. That marriage was to last for 13 years, and produce one further child.
In January 1989, in circumstances which have been the subject of some dispute, title to 91 Brook Street passed from the husband to the wife and Mr Griffiths. At the time, on 4 th January 1989, the wife signed a document which read, materially, as follows: ' I… acknowledge that (the husband) has agreed by contract to sell to me and (Mr Griffiths) the property 91 Brook Street at the price of fifteen thousand pounds and I estimate its current market value to be in the region of sixty-five thousand pounds. I acknowledge on my own behalf and on behalf of my son William, that this gift is made in full and final settlement of any claim that I or my son William may have against (the husband).' Whilst the husband maintains that this document properly reflects the agreement between them at the time, the wife now says that in fact a further cash payment was made.
Ten years later, in 1999, the wife separated from Mr Griffiths, and in 2000 she made contact with the husband again – asking for assistance to help fund Will's tertiary education costs. At the end of that year, the parties went on holiday together and the husband separated from Anne, to whom he had by then been married to for some 29 years. During 2001, the parties began to cohabit together in a property, owned by one of the husband's business concerns, called Lynwood. In that year the husband's marriage to Anne is dissolved. In 2002, the wife's marriage to Peter Griffiths is also dissolved. In November 2003, the parties moved into the husband's former matrimonial home at Penselwood, near Wincanton, upon Anne vacating the property.
2 1/2 years after this, in March 2006, it is accepted that the wife visited a matrimonial solicitor, Mr Stokes, and took some advice – the precise purpose and extent of which has been in dispute before me – but from which meeting a hand-written attendance note has been produced. She says that she sought advice about her position only in the event of the husband's death at that point. The husband contends that the advice sought also covered her rights in the event of separation. The parties at that point were of course merely cohabiting.
In November 2008, the parties separated for a period of between 1 and 2 weeks when the wife left, and the husband wrote a letter to her in which he said: ' I would count my blessings if you were to give me one last chance'. She evidently determined to do that, and the parties were reconciled, and subsequently married on 18 th April 2009. In that same year the wife gifted her share in a property to her daughter by her first marriage, Samantha. She also provided the sum of £285,000 to the parties' son William to enable to acquire a property in North London. This is money that she had realised from the renovation and sale of another property of hers. There has been an issue between the parties as to whether at the time this was intended to be a gift (as the wife says), or a loan.
Just over a year after their marriage, in July 2010, the wife returned to see Mr Stokes, and this time received a detailed letter of advice from him following their meeting, some 21 pages long, which covered the broad range of her entitlement, and was sent to her care of a friend's address. Under the heading 'Your Instructions', Mr Stokes set out in that letter the following account of the situation as it then stood: 'Notwithstanding your consultation with me in March 2006 and the advice I gave you, you separated from Mr Hopkins in November 2008, though your separation was brief, as he encouraged you to reconcile and be married in April 2009. By June 2010 your marriage was in difficulty, so that you and Mr Hopkins have discussed separation and its dissolution. Your discussion with him has prompted you to seek my further advice. You have asked me to advise you with regard to matrimonial causes and, prospectively, to represent you in them.'
Further in that letter Mr Stokes described as the wife's 'only significant asset' ' the loan which you have made to William of £300,000…William is expected to make arrangements soon…to repay about 2/3 of the loan with the balance being forgiven as part of a family arrangement, which you have made with Mr Hopkins' concurrence.' The husband does not accept that he was made aware of this arrangement, but does accept that he knew of the loan.
In the event, proceedings did not immediately follow. Mr Stokes sent a bill for work done in the following October, to which the wife responded by email on 24 th November 2010. That email included the following: ' Bill (the husband) never looks at my computer…I told Bill I'd spoken with you, which may well have been helpful! Possibly not if he'd known what you actually sent me. Remarkably Bill does tell me all the business details, which may have seemed unlikely to you the state I was in when I saw you. Things have changed since I came to see you. A combination of various changes…but we are both much happier.'
In early February 2011, the parties attended counselling sessions with 2 different counsellors, but these sessions proved unsuccessful. Subsequently, they both attended matrimonial solicitors, but the wife determined not to go back to Mr Stokes, but rather to see Mr Justin Martin, then of Poole & Co. He first saw her on 26 th February. She does not appear to have...
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