Li Quan v William Stuart Bray
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Holman |
| Judgment Date | 23 July 2019 |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] EWFC 46 |
| Court | Family Court |
| Docket Number | No. FD12D03916 |
| Date | 23 July 2019 |
[2019] EWFC 46
IN THE FAMILY COURT
SITTING AT THE ROYAL COURTS
OF JUSTICE
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Holman
(sitting throughout in public)
No. FD12D03916
Mr Joseph Switalski (instructed by Vardags) appeared on behalf of the applicant.
THE RESPONDENT appeared in person via telephone from Colorado, USA
(As approved by the judge)
This is yet another hearing in the very protracted divorce proceedings between these parties. As recently as 20 December 2018, Mostyn J made a financial order. It required the former husband (whom I will, for convenience, call “the husband”) to pay arrears of maintenance to the wife forthwith in the quantified sum of £10,000. It further required him to make payments in the sum of £1,000 on the first days of January and February 2019, that is, in aggregate, a further £2,000. It further required him to pay £5,333 on 1 March 2019 and on the first day of each month thereafter. Between then and now five payments have been due, namely on 1 March, 1 April, 1 May, 1 June and 1 July. In aggregate, five times £5,333 is £26,665. Accordingly, since 20 December 2018, the husband has been required to pay in total the sum of £10,000 plus £2,000 plus £26,665, namely £38,665. He himself has agreed and accepted on the telephone today that he has not paid one penny of those sums.
As a result, the wife, who has battled for a long time to obtain any financial provision from her former husband, issued an application dated 24 June 2019 in a prescribed standard form of “Notice of application for enforcement by such method of enforcement as the court may consider appropriate”. That application was placed before Mostyn J (sitting in his private room) for directions, which he gave on 26 June 2019. Those directions included that the respondent (the husband) shall attend the court sitting here at the Royal Courts of Justice, with the full address given, on 23 July 2019, which is today. The husband has not personally attended today, but earlier today he sent an email to the wife's solicitors in which he stated that he could not attend today but wished to attend by telephone, giving a stated mobile phone number. I caused that number to be rung and it transpired that the husband is in fact currently at an address in Colorado, USA, which he says is the home of a member of his family.
I wish to stress that nothing I have said or done today in any way whatsoever condones the fact that, in flagrant disobedience to the order made by Mostyn J on 26 June 2019, the husband has not personally attended this hearing today. Clearly, once the court assembled this morning (and I waited until about 11.10 BST to afford an opportunity for the husband to attend in person) I was forced to do the next best thing, namely permit him to participate by telephone, as he has done. The result is that the husband has participated throughout this hearing by telephone, and is able to listen to these words as I speak.
It seems to me important that there should be an official record of this hearing today, and I shall direct that an official transcript be made. It seems unconscionable that public funds should have to bear the cost when these parties have spent phenomenal amounts of money litigating over the years, but as I desire and intend that a transcript shall urgently be made available, I have little alternative but to say that the court will pay for it.
The husband has told me on the telephone that until 19 July, which is about four days ago, he was still in Bangkok where it appears he currently lives. Starting on 19 July, he travelled via Tokyo and Los Angeles to Colorado and the place where he now is. Clearly, that travel was funded, and it is unlikely to have been less expensive than travelling non-stop from Bangkok to London, which it is possible to do on regular scheduled flights. I asked the husband how it is that he was able to fund travel via Tokyo and Los Angeles to Colorado but not to London, and he said that his family had been willing to pay for him to travel to see them, but by inference that they were not willing to pay for him to travel to London for an important hearing to resolve financial difficulties with his former wife. I make no further comment about that.
Having formally issued on 27 June 2019 their “Notice of application for enforcement by such method of enforcement as the court may consider appropriate”, the wife's advisers have effectively accepted today that none of the means of enforcement contemplated by an application in those terms are effectively or realistically open to the wife.
There cannot be an attachment of earnings order as there is no evidence that the husband is in receipt of any regular income from an employer in England and Wales to which such an order could attach. There is no clear evidence of any significant third-party debt against which a third-party debt order could be made. There is apparently a possible payment of £20,000 due to the husband from a man called Mr Nilson, but in effect, at paragraphs 20 to 21 of his very helpful “Note on Behalf of the Applicant Wife” dated yesterday, 22 July 2019, Mr Joseph Switalski has accepted that the prospect of enforcing against that particular sum...
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