Leila Kassem Hammoud v Talal Qals Abdulmunem Al Zawawi
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Holman |
| Judgment Date | 15 March 2019 |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] EWHC 839 (Fam) |
| Docket Number | No. FD18F00010 |
| Court | Family Division |
| Date | 15 March 2019 |
[2019] EWHC 839 (Fam)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Holman
(sitting throughout in public)
No. FD18F00010
Miss Kyra Cornwall (instructed by Payne Hicks Beach) appeared on behalf of the applicant.
THE RESPONDENT did not attend and was not represented.
(As approved by the judge)
Introduction and the non-attendance of the husband
Without any objection by or on behalf of the wife, I heard the whole of this case in public and I now deliver this judgment in public.
This is the final substantive hearing of a former wife's claim under Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 (“the 1984 Act”) for financial relief after an overseas divorce.
I, myself, have already given interim judgments in the same proceedings on 19 April 2018 and 24 July 2018 which are publicly available on the Bailii website under neutral citation numbers [2018] EWHC 1214 (Fam) and [2018] EWHC 2436 (Fam) respectively.
I have also given a judgment on 1 November 2018 in the linked children arrangements proceedings number FD17P00707, which is publicly available under neutral citation number [2018] EWHC 2956 (Fam).
Those judgments, which I incorporate into this judgment by reference, explain my reasons for making the various interim orders which I did as to maintenance and costs funding, and my reasons for deciding that the three children should remain living in England with their mother (subject to any decision by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to remove them) and that into the foreseeable future any direct contact with them by their father must take place within England and Wales and requires to be supervised.
Tragically, and despite the last sentence of my judgment of 1 November 2018, the father has not since then travelled to England to see his children. He speaks to them frequently, but irregularly, on the telephone, but he has not seen them now since January 2018, although they long to see him and the mother would very much like him to see them.
Although they have been divorced in Oman since 2017, I will for convenience refer to the parties as the “husband” and the “wife”. The husband, who lives in Oman, has neither attended nor been represented at the present hearing, although he is undoubtedly very well aware that it is taking place here this week and he is a very rich man who can, without the least financial difficulty, afford to attend and/or instruct lawyers as he has done in the past.
For several months in the first half of 2018 the husband instructed the prestigious London firm of specialist solicitors, Vardags. Between June and mid-September 2018, he instructed the no less prestigious firm, Stewarts. Both firms of solicitors retained and instructed Mr Charles Hale QC, who represented the husband at the hearings on 19 April and 24 July 2018 (and at an earlier two-day hearing on 28 February and 2 March 2018 before Mr Justice MacDonald in relation to the children).
Since 14 September 2018 the husband has chosen, as is his right, to act in person, but he has not actually participated in any of the subsequent hearings. I am in no doubt that he has been well aware of the dates and place of the present hearing for many months. The date was fixed during August 2018, while Stewarts were still acting and on the record, and it was fixed expressly for the convenience and availability of the husband's counsel, Mr Charles Hale QC. It is a virtual certainty that Stewarts will have informed their client of the date so fixed.
Further, the wife's solicitors, Payne Hicks Beach, have satisfied me that they have sent several communications to the known email addresses of the husband informing him, or reminding him, of the date. They have sent him as email attachments all the documents prepared for this hearing.
On 17 February 2019 the husband, himself, sent an email (from one of those email addresses) to Payne Hicks Beach and my own clerk stating:
“Kindly ensure that my statement dated 24 July 2018, providing my disclosure (copy attached) is included in the bundle for the judge at the final hearing. Thank you. Kind regards Talal Al Zawawi.”
Although that email does not itself expressly refer to the actual date of the final hearing, its tone is clearly that the final hearing is approaching and the writer is aware of the date, for otherwise he would have asked when it was.
The husband is, very regrettably, in clear breach of numerous orders of this court. As well as very significant breaches with regard to payments of maintenance, outgoings and school fees, to which I will refer below, the husband has failed to file and serve a financial statement of his means in prescribed Form E within the lengthy and further extended time limits allowed to him.
The husband has failed to file and serve any statement dealing with the relevant factors under section 18 of the 1984 Act, either by the time prescribed or at all, as ordered by me on 19 December 2018. He has failed to give any updating, or indeed any proper, disclosure. He has failed to file and serve his open proposals; and in breach of paragraph 22(a) of the order of 19 December 2018, he has failed personally to attend any part of this hearing. He did not attend when I heard oral submissions on Tuesday, 12 March 2018, and he has not attended today even though he was notified of the precise date and time when I would deliver this judgment.
The husband's failure to file a Form E or give any proper disclosure is made all the worse because the whole thrust and burden of his statement dated 24 July 2018 (which he asked to be included in the present bundle, as it has been) is that he is “committed to satisfying my disclosure obligations and will do so as quickly as possible. I want to take a full part in the financial proceedings which I recognise by not yet providing the documents to the court, have been delayed for which I offer the court my apology” (see paragraph 5 of the statement). Paragraph 7 is to the same effect. Paragraph 8 promises that the Form E “will follow shortly”. The final paragraph, paragraph 17, concludes:
“…I respectfully ask the court to grant me an extension to the time for service of my financial disclosure and adjourn the determination of Leila's applications until such time as the court has a full and proper understanding of my finances.”
That was dated 24 July 2018.
At the hearing on 24 July 2018, at which Stewarts and Mr Charles Hale QC were present on behalf of the husband, I duly further extended the time for filing and serving the Form E to 17 August 2018. Seven and a half months have now passed since 24 July 2018 and the husband has not produced one single page of further evidence or disclosure, whether by 17 August 2018 or at all.
In those circumstances, I have had no hesitation in proceeding with the present hearing, despite the respondent husband being neither present nor represented. Frankly, the husband has displayed a wholesale failure to engage with this court or these proceedings since last July, or at the very latest mid-September when he terminated his instructions to Stewarts. He is very well aware of the proceedings and of the hearing dates. A respondent cannot simply ignore court orders and hope that the proceedings will go away.
I must, of course, nevertheless strive to reach an outcome which is just and fair to both parties, and during the hearing Miss Kyra Cornwall on behalf of the wife was at pains to ensure a fair and objective presentation of her client's case. Nevertheless, it is no fault or responsibility of anyone but the husband himself that I have had the difficult task of deciding this case without any submissions or argument on behalf of the husband; without any oral evidence from him; without any cross-examination on his behalf of the wife; and with very little evidence of his means, save that supplied with his statement of 24 July 2018 and that produced by or on behalf of the wife.
The facts
Where I make findings of fact I do so on the ordinary civil standard of the balance of probability. The essential facts and chronology are as follows.
The husband is now aged forty-eight. He is a citizen of Oman and lives there. The wife is now aged thirty-six, her date of birth being 11 June 1982. She is a citizen of the Lebanon, but has lived in London with the children since September 2015.
The husband is one of the eight children of the late Qais Bin Abdulmunim Al Zawawi. He appears to have been a very prominent person and politician in Oman and a very successful businessman. He was killed in a car accident in September 1995 while travelling in a car with the present Sultan of Oman who, himself, survived.
Under the law of Oman, sons inherit two shares of the estate for every one share inherited by a daughter. The deceased father was survived by four sons (including the husband) and four daughters. So it was that, long before these parties first met, the husband became heir to two-twelfths ( vis one sixth or 16.66 per cent) of his father's business interests and wealth.
These parties first met in February 2005 and married in July 2005. There were lavish...
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