Q v Q
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Cobb |
| Judgment Date | 28 June 2021 |
| Neutral Citation | [2021] EWHC 1757 (Fam) |
| Docket Number | Case No: FD21F00030 / BR89D02383 |
| Court | Family Division |
[2021] EWHC 1757 (Fam)
THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Cobb
Case No: FD21F00030 / BR89D02383
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mrs Q (Applicant) appeared in person
Samuel Davis (counsel, instructed by ADLip) for Mr Q
Hearing dates: 24 May 2021;
Further written submissions 1 and 8 June 2021
Approved Judgment
I direct that no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Cobb
This judgment was delivered in private. The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of the judgment the anonymity of the children and members of their family must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that this condition is strictly complied with. Failure to do so will be a contempt of court.
Introduction
The Applicant, Mrs Q (although long since divorced from Mr Q, I shall refer to her in this judgment as “the wife”), has presented to the court a number of applications in which she seeks a range of orders against Mr Q (“the husband”). I list them as follows:
The ‘freezing injunction’ (and linked) applications:
i) An application for a freezing injunction which she brings under section 37 Senior Courts Act 1981 (‘ SCA 1981’), to restrain the husband and/or his solicitors from disposing of a sum or sums due to be paid imminently to the husband under a testamentary legacy of the husband's deceased stepfather;
ii) An application for an order against the estate of the husband's deceased stepfather requiring the executors to pay an unspecified lump sum into court; although not specified in the application I have deemed this to be made under rule 20.2(1)(j) Family Procedure Rules 2010 (‘ FPR 2010’);
iii) A deemed application 1 for an order for enforcement of alleged non-payment of spousal maintenance going back to 1990 (the wife's initial estimate was that the sum due in this regard was in the region of £91,000; her later revised figure suggested £225,000, coincidentally the approximate sum due to the husband under the testamentary legacy);
“… there are multiple orders made by the court and High Court which have never been settled by the Respondent nor has any attempt been made in good faith by the Respondent to attempt to pay the monies owed”.
Non-Molestation application
iv) An application for a non-molestation order under the Family Law Act 1996;
The variation and further financial remedy applications:
At the hearing on 24 May 2021, the wife intimated an intention to make further applications, and following the hearing, on 3 June, she made further formal applications for:
v) A lump sum order due to the “imminent inheritance stepfather”;
vi) A “lump sum order pension sharing rights, cashed in full by the respondent”;
vii) “Reinstatement (sic.) of lump sum”;
viii) An order for payment of outstanding arrears of maintenance, for which she seeks permission under section 32 Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (‘ MCA 1973’);
ix) “Lump sum due to imminent inheritance S25 Respondent's mother” (sic.);
x) Upward variation of spousal maintenance;
A Hadkinson order:
xi) A Hadkinson 2 order; a copy of this application is in the wife's bundle of documents; it is not clear whether this has been issued, and/or when; it has not apparently been served on the husband;
Costs
xii) An application for an order for costs.
The wife's documentation filed in respect of the freezing injunction applications also makes reference to an “application for conspiracy at common law … He is guilty of conspiracy”. This part of the application plainly makes no sense and I have considered it reasonable to ignore it. She has further purported to claim: an opportunity to amend (in an unclear way) an order made more than 15 years ago, in 2006, by Baron J; an application for “pension rights”; an application to value the contents of the former matrimonial home as at 1990; and an application that the husband should discharge a debt owed by the wife to her mother in the sum of £75,000. These applications are without any secure legal or factual foundation and I propose also to disregard them for present purposes.
The application(s) for the freezing order and linked applications identified in paragraph 1(i)-(iii) above are supported by witness statements dated 12 April 2021, 1 May 2021, and 10 May 2021. These applications were before me for directions on 19 April 2021; I listed the case for further hearing on 24 May 2021, at which I contemplated giving directions. The husband filed evidence in reply.
In the meantime, the wife issued her application for a non-molestation order; this application appears to have been provoked by a discussion which took place at the conclusion of the 19 April hearing, when Mr Brian Farmer of the Press Association (who had with my permission attended the hearing) asked if he could report the facts of this case – remarkable only because of its seemingly interminable litigation history; I heard brief submissions from the parties (neither of whom seemed opposed to this) and then indicated that he could do so, provided that there was no identification of the parties. Following the hearing, the wife contacted my clerk to indicate that she was very concerned that media reports would be published of the case naming her adult children. I reassured her that this had not been Mr Farmer's intention, nor was it authorised by me. In the event, no press report followed.
Before the matter was next listed, the wife made the further applications listed at §1(v)-(xi) above.
Having heard argument on 24 May 2021, I was satisfied that it would be neither necessary nor proportionate (having particular regard to the overriding objective in rule 1 of the FPR 2010, and the guidance offered by the President of the Family Division in the Road Ahead 2020, see esp. §43–49) to adjourn the wife's applications again for further substantive hearing; I indicated this to the parties. I satisfied myself that both parties had a proper opportunity to put their case fully, and knowing that they were aware that my intention was to deal with the case finally at this stage, I deal with the applications substantively now.
This judgment contains no novel point of law or principle but sets out my reasons for refusing all of the wife's applications except for that at 1(x) (above) (the application for upward variation of maintenance) which I shall transfer to be heard at the appropriately located Family Court near to her home.
The hearing
The hearing of the applications took place on 24 May 2021; the wife appeared in person, the husband by counsel, Mr Samuel Davis, instructed on a direct access basis.
The presentation of the wife's case at the hearing was somewhat chaotic, aggravated no doubt by the stress of the occasion. Her written evidence contained allegations and statements which were not evidenced and which strongly indicated a high level of paranoia and delusional thinking (her statements contained extravagant claims of serious criminal conduct and acts of harassment on the part of the husband, and members of his family, which were denied by the husband). I noted that in her written evidence she referred to the fact that she felt that she was “having an emotional breakdown”, and was regulating herself with undefined sedatives. This may well be a chronic problem; in her up-to-date chronology she referred to a 30 year history of taking anti-depressants. It also chimed with an earlier judgement of District Judge Wilkinson to which she referred me (March 2003) in which I saw reference to occasions when the wife has been “unwell… dependent upon painkillers…overdosed several times… It is pretty clear that her current state of mind and obsessiveness with these proceedings prevent any meaningful attempt to return to work…”.
The recently filed material gave additional cause for concern about the wife's state of mental health. In her hard-copy bundle of documents, she had filed a recently prepared report from her GP (21 April 2021) which contains the following comments:
“[Mrs Q] … currently suffers from severe anxiety and panic disorder mainly secondary to the stress arising from the court case 3. She has also been extremely stressed and fearful of reprisals from her ex-husband's family. She has been unable to sleep or concentrate and a few weeks ago resorted to drinking alcohol to calm her nerves. She has a diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder and has been under the care of the community mental health home treatment
team… She has had mental health problems since before the year 2000…”
While not unsympathetic to the wife's situation, Mr Davis perfectly properly and understandably reminded me of Lord Sumption's comments in Barton v Wright Hassall LLP [2018] UKSC 12 at [18] about participation in litigation of Litigants in Person:
‘Their [LiPs] lack of representation will often justify making allowances in making case management decisions and in conducting hearings. But it will not usually justify applying to litigants in person a lower standard of compliance with rules or orders of the court. The overriding objective requires the courts so far as practicable to enforce compliance with the rules.’
The point is well-made but overall I took the view in light of the comments to which I have made reference above that the wife was a vulnerable party as that term is understood in Part 3A of the FPR 2010 (see rule 3A.7(b)) and PD3AA para.3.1, and made all appropriate allowances for her in her presentation of her case.
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