A v A (Financial Provision: Conduct)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1995 |
| Date | 1995 |
| Court | Family Division |
THORPE, J
Financial provision – husband suffering psychological disturbance on breakdown of marriage – committing serious assault on wife – only financial resource capital value of matrimonial home – totality of relevant factors to be taken into account – no power to settle husband's share of capital on children – appropriate order to have regard to all the circumstances.
The parties were married in 1968. They had three children: two girls now aged 21 and 18 respectively and a boy aged 14. The parties were divorced in 1992 and both applied for ancillary relief. On separation the wife had stayed in the matrimonial home which now had a net value of £50,000. The husband moved away but eventually went to live in a bed-sitting room in the same part of the country as the wife. He was in receipt of income support.
Towards the end of the 1980s the wife had enrolled on a university degree course. The husband became depressed and suicidal, a state which had continued unalleviated by continuing medical supervision. In September 1991, after an absence from home of some months, the husband went to a neighbour's house where the wife and the son were visiting. In the absence of any provocation he hit the wife a forceful blow on the chest with a kitchen knife. The physical damage she suffered proved relatively trivial: a surface wound on her left breast. The husband ran off and attempted to commit suicide on a nearby railway line. Although the wife had not suffered any further molestation, the husband maintained obsessional feelings about her and made statements threatening to harm her.
Dealing with the application for financial relief the district judge ordered that the husband's interest in the matrimonial home be settled on the children.
The husband appealed.
Held – allowing the appeal: (1) Although the husband's assault on the wife in September 1991 was conduct which it would be inequitable to disregard, it was only one of the factors to be reflected in the exercise under s 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. It was not a factor which should have driven the court to conclude that the husband should be deprived of his entire capital, particularly bearing in mind that his psychological disturbance originated in the reaction to the breakdown of his marriage. Further, the district judge did not appear to have considered the wife's potential claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.
(2) The application of capital from a spouse to children was not a permissible objective of the statutory powers.
(3) In exercising the court's discretion as to financial provision, the starting point was the parties' joint entitlement to the matrimonial home at the net value of £50,000. That starting point needed to be adjusted to reflect the combination of conduct, responsibility, needs and contribution. The wife had the overall responsibility for the care and upbringing of the children until they reached independence. From that responsibility flowed the need for all the capital to be available to the wife until that responsibility was discharged.
(4) In this case it was desirable that there be a clear and final order. There would be an order that the husband transfer all his interest in the matrimonial home to the wife and that she should pay him a lump sum of £15,000. The date for payment would be deferred until the wife had completed the responsibility for the children and particularly the responsibility to provide them with a home.
Statutory provisions referred to:Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s 25.
Case referred to in judgment:Jones v Jones [1976] Fam 8; [1975] 2 WLR 606; [1975] 2 All ER 12.
Richard Bromilow for the wife.
Christopher Gosland for the husband.
MR JUSTICE THORPE.This is an appeal from an order of District Judge Turner sitting in the Barnstaple county court on 4 February 1994. He had before him applications for ancillary relief issued by the respondent husband on 9 September 1992 and by...
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