Evans v Evans
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE BALCOMBE,MR. JUSTICE ANTHONY LINCOLN |
| Judgment Date | 22 July 1988 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1988] EWCA Civ J0722-7 |
| Docket Number | 88/0677 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 22 July 1988 |
[1988] EWCA Civ J0722-7
Lord Justice Balcombe
and
Mr. Justice Anthony Lincoln
88/0677
53D 1179
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION (DIVORCE)
MANCHESTER DISTRICT REGISTRY
(MR. JUSTICE REEVE)
Royal Courts of Justice
THE PETITIONER (APPELLANT) appeared in person.
MR. D. BERKLEY (instructed by Messrs. Graham Leigh, Pfeffer & Co., Solicitors, Manchester, M25 5AS) appeared on behalf of the Respondent (Respondent).
This is an appeal by the petitioner in person against an order of Mr. Justice Reeve made on 21st May 1987. I shall call the appellant "the wife" even though her marriage was dissolved many years ago. I take the facts entirely from the judgment of Mr. Justice Reeve.
The parties were married in September 1949; they lived together for a short time only, before separating finally in 1951. There was one daughter born to them in that year. Divorce proceedings were taken by the wife and eventually the marriage was dissolved by a decree absolute in the year 1953. The judge said that he was told that the husband was then aged 67 and the wife 69, so that it appeared that they were aged about 29 and 31 respectively at the time when they were married. While, of course, the passage of time does not affect their ages at marriage, the result today is that the husband would now be 68 and the wife about 70.
The learned judge continued:
"After the divorce had taken place the wife made application for financial relief and an order for periodical payments was made in her favour."
He imagined that at that time there were periodical payments made in respect of the daughter, but he said that those did not concern him. I continue the quotation from the judgment:
"At various times the amount of periodical payments in favour of the wife was increased, the last such variation being on 17th June 1980, when the sum payable by the husband to the wife was increased to £37 per week."
He then refers to the fact that the husband had retired and was on a pension, and he continues:
"During all the times that there have been orders against the husband to make periodical payments for the wife he has meticulously complied with those requirements. In fact on some occasions he has voluntarily increased the payments to the wife above those which were actually required of him by the order of the court. Even when he retired there is no indication that he started either reducing or failing to pay the sums which he was required to do by order of the court."
It is right that I should add at this point that in this court the wife has asserted, although certainly she has not in any way proved, that the husband had not properly disclosed his income during the period in question. Nevertheless, I continue with the quotation from the judgment:
"In 1985 the wife was charged with inciting others to murder the husband. She was tried by the Recorder of Manchester and in June that year she was found guilty. The learned Recorder adjourned the matter for psychiatric reports and after he had been supplied with those reports, on 10th September 1985, he sentenced the wife to four years' immediate imprisonment.
"I have not been informed much about the details of the offence of which she was convicted, but it appears that there was an approach by the wife to a clairvoyant, through whose agency she sought to arrange the murder of her husband. There was also an approach by her to try and obtain others to murder her husband, by one means or another, on payment of a fee to them of £1,000, what is called a 'contract fee'.
"Almost immediately after the wife had been sentenced, not merely after she had been convicted but after she had been sentenced, the husband consulted solicitors with regard to whether he should continue to make the payments required under the order. Although I do not know specifically the advice that he was given by his solicitor then, some time during that month he ceased payments which had been, up until then, entirely regular and kept up to date. Almost simultaneously he made an application to this court, on 24th September 1985, asking that the order, last varied on 17th June 1980, should be discharged. He swore an affidavit in support of that application."
I think the date given by the learned judge there may be wrong, because the affidavit was sworn on 6th September and we were told by Mr. Berkley that the application was dated 9th September, but it matters not in the context of this case.
"The wife answered that affidavit by an affidavit of her own, sworn on 5th December, and she made a cross-application to increase the...
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