X v Y

This case concerns V, a seven-year-old girl. An application is made by her father, F, seeking a Specific Issue Order providing for her return to Dubai. Her mother, M, opposes the application.

On 17^th September 2025, Henke J listed this hearing with a time estimate of three days and gave directions for the filing of statements of evidence and the preparation of schedules of allegations. She also directed the preparation of a report by an officer of the Cafcass High Court Team. On 25^th November 2025, I heard a pre-trial review (PTR) at which, with the agreement of both parties and on the recommendation of the Cafcass Officer, I directed that this hearing be used as a fact-finding hearing.

In addition to the PTR on 25^th November 2025, Henke J had also listed the case for further case management directions before me on 14^th October 2025. On that date, I approved an Order for the instruction of Dr. Sally Braithwaite, Consultant Psychiatrist, to provide a psychiatric assessment of M by 24^th November 2025. A report was prepared, dated 23^rd November 2025. I regret to say I considered it to be of little, if any, evidential value. It consisted almost entirely of M’s own report, which was, at times, demonstrably inaccurate, most relevantly in respect of her account of her use of psychoactive medication. This report serves nobody, not least M. This Court, the parties, and the child are entitled to, and expect, better.

At the PTR, there had been discussion as to whether the Schedule of Allegations presented by F could properly be said to constitute “parental alienation”. For my part, I consider that label generates heat and rarely casts forensic light. It is the actual substance of the allegations that matter, not the name given to them. Here, the allegations made by F are that M has obstructed V’s relationship with F. M makes similar countervailing allegations. The Schedules were amended on this premise, and I address the substance of them on this basis.

The breakdown of the parents’ marriage is absolute, in the sense that it is entirely irretrievable. The evolution and ultimately the disintegration of this marriage is particularly sad. In very few cases does the Court regard it as necessary to conduct a post-mortem on what or who killed a marriage. In this case however, and for particular reasons, this issue is an important facet in understanding the factual matrix upon which future welfare decisions must be made.

Both M and F were born in England and are British citizens. They met in 1999, began a relationship in 2002 and were married in England on 10^th May 2003. Following their marriage, they lived initially at a house owned by the father in Hertfordshire (which is held in F and the paternal grandparent’s names and where the paternal grandparents continue to reside). On their marriage, the couple moved to Kenya, where F had just started a business. The business thrived and the family continued to live, in very comfortable circumstances, in Kenya until 2018, when they moved to Dubai. M has contended that she encountered pressure from F initially to move to Kenya and later to transfer to Dubai. I have tried to follow her account on both these assertions but ultimately was unable to do so. I find that M’s pervasive distress and palpable unhappiness has led her to cast a pall over much of her marriage, which I consider was, in fact on the available evidence, for long periods, a happy one. I do not say this as a criticism of her credibility. It is, in my judgement, attributable to the fact that her recollection has become distorted by subsequent unhappiness.

The couple had three children together. Their first child, S, a girl, was born, in England, on 30^th October 2005. The second, J, a boy, was born in 2007. V is their youngest child. Both parties agree that the marriage was “a love match”. F tells me with force and conviction that he was besotted with M. M had been married before, and the breakdown of her first marriage opened an unexpected opportunity for F, he told me, to pursue her. I found him entirely convincing in this account, not least because it seemed to be entirely accepted by M. Perhaps because her trust and confidence had, to some extent, been buffeted by the collapse of her first marriage, M was more tempered and restrained, but this is a marriage which has endured for over 20 years.

S was, in my judgement, the centre of M’s world. I have no doubt that she was greatly loved by F too. F, however, was steeped in his ambition to build a successful and dynamic business. There was little room for his children in that enterprise. It is to his credit that he recognises this, without demur. Tragedy struck the family in 2015. S became ill and was diagnosed with having an inoperable brain tumour. The parents deployed every sinew of their energy in investigating medical options, but yielded, ultimately, to the sad inevitability of losing their daughter. In the twelve months that she survived, F completely restructured his life around her, and the couple did their best to work together to make her last few months as peaceful and as happy as they could be. It seems to me that in their different ways, they were both able to achieve that. S died in February 2016 when she was 10 years old. It is a lamentable fact that having navigated S’s terminal illness, both parents were entirely ill equipped to cope with her death.

In his evidence, F told me how his coping strategy was to be grateful for S’s life but essentially to consign it to the past and move on. In striking, indeed in almost chilling terms, he told me that S’s death “does not affect me anymore”. He also told me that he has kept himself busy, believes strongly in the restorative benefits of structured and active routines, most noticeably, exercise. He told me that he was no longer able to cry and that he had no wish to participate in therapy. His grief is sublimated, detached, and isolated. I characterise his response in necessarily blunt forensic language, but I emphasise I do not say any of this critically. There is no template of behaviour to navigate the loss of a child. M, by contrast, reached out for her husband’s support. On my assessment of their evidence, much of which is, when carefully analysed, strikingly similar, F’s efforts were directed solely into encouraging M to adopt his avoidant and structured routines. His attempt to alleviate his wife’s repeated and chronic depression was focused upon encouraging her to come to the gym and exercise with him. She needed far greater succour and support than that. F, in my assessment, simply did not have that within him. At a time when this couple needed each other, neither was able to help. Their evolving unhappiness is rooted in this grief. Both are intelligent and reflective enough to recognise this. This sad reality is to be recognised but not to be judged. To my mind, it is against this backdrop that the Schedule and responses have to be evaluated and, to a large extent, recast.

In the context of family disputes, Schedules of allegations can be effective signposts, pointing to facts, upon which future risk may be evaluated. They are not, however, to be equated with contours on a map, which have carefully to be followed to plot precisely where the evidence may lie. Fact-finding hearings are dynamic. The judge must follow the evidence and not become tethered by the Schedule. Whether behaviour is unkind, cold, insensitive, selfish or whether it is humiliating, frightening, harmful, or abusive, will frequently depend on context. It is the evidence, not the Schedules, that provide the context and will, accordingly, substantiate or undermine, or perhaps more commonly, simply change the nature of the findings that are required to be made. The responsibility of the Court is always, and at every stage, to focus on the purpose of the findings. The key to the exercise is proportionality.

Litigating issues which have become unnecessary and thus, disproportionate, is not merely wasteful of time and resources, it is likely to be actively harmful. A forensic bloodletting for no benefit, will serve further to damage any prospect, however greatly damaged it may already have become, of the parties’ cooperating in the child’s future arrangements. In almost every case, some degree of cooperation will be required for the future, e.g. contact, education, etc. To consign the future to an endless theatre of conflict is to guarantee significant emotional harm to the child who is, or ought to be, at the centre of the process and whose welfare should always be the paramount consideration. Thus, the proportionality of continuing investigation into the parties’ respective allegations requires constantly to be monitored. The following passages In H-N And Others (Children) (Domestic Abuse: Finding of Fact Hearings) (Rev 2)[2021] EWCA Civ 448, require to be highlighted (the emphasis is mine):

“36.

It is important for the court to have regard to the need for procedural proportionality at all times, both before and during any fact-finding process. A key word in PD12J paragraphs 16 and 17 is ‘necessary’. It is a word which also sits at the core of the President’s Guidance ‘The Road Ahead’ (June 2020), (‘RA II’) in particular:

‘43. If the Family Court is to have any chance of delivering on the needs of children or adults who need protection from abuse, or of their families for a timely determination of applications, there will need to be a very radical reduction in the amount of time that the court affords to each hearing. Parties appearing before the court should expect the issues to be limited only to those which it is necessary to determine to dispose of the case, and for oral evidence or oral submissions to be cut down only to that which it is necessary for the court to hear.’

...

‘46. Parties will not be allowed to litigate every issue and present extensive oral evidence or oral submissions; an oral hearing will encompass only that which is necessary to determine the application before the court.

47.It is important at this time to keep the ‘overriding objective’ as set out in Family Procedure Rules 2010, r 1.1 in mind:

“The overriding objective

1.1

(1)

These rules are a new procedural code with the overriding objective of enabling the court to deal with cases justly, having regard to any welfare issues involved.

(2)

Dealing with a case justly includes, so far as is practicable –

(a)

ensuring that it is dealt with expeditiously and fairly;

(b)

dealing with the case in ways which are proportionate to the nature, importance and complexity of the issues;

(c)

ensuring that the parties are on an equal footing;

(d)

saving expense; and

(e)

allotting to it an appropriate share of the court's resources, while taking into account the need to allot resources to other cases."

In these times, each of these elements is important, but particular emphasis should be afforded to identifying the ‘welfare issues involved’, dealing with a case proportionately in terms of ‘allotting to it an appropriate share of the court’s resources’ and ensuring an ‘equal footing’ between parties.’ (emphasis added)”

The legal framework of fact-finding hearings has been regularly re-rinsed; the principles are clear and established and do not need to be restated here. Mr Gration KC, on behalf of M, has set the case law out extensively, and I have it in mind.

On 3^rd August 2024, the family travelled to England on holiday, as was their regular habit. The intention was that V would return in time for school on 27^th August 2024. F left England on 20^th August 2024 to take J back to school in America. I have been told, and I accept, that S’s death generated an epiphany for F. He effectively stepped back from his business empire, honing it down to a much leaner operation which required him to work for only an hour a day. F told me that to have the luxury of spare time in Dubai is rare. It is a community which works hard and plays hard. He is a keen golfer and plays regularly. He attends the gym virtually every day, at around 6am. He told me that he was determined not to miss out on his children’s lives in the way that he had done in the past and which was brutally brought home to him by S’s death. V was a late child for the couple, born with the assistance of IVF. There can be no doubt, on any view of the evidence, that F now channels a great deal of his formidable energy into his children’s lives.

It is important I record that F told me that his Hindu faith really began to grow when S was ill. Initially at her request and subsequently with mutual commitment, F and S attended the temple in her last twelve months. That interest in his faith has continued. One aspect of it is a belief in reincarnation, which in Hinduism, is predicated on the belief that the soul is eternal. F told me that he believes that S’s soul lives on in V and she is with them still. It is clear that provides great comfort and solace to him. This consolation does not appear to have been available to M, though she too is a Hindu.

Not very long after V’s birth, M’s mental health was plainly suffering. In 2021, she began seeing a clinical psychologist, Dr. H. In April 2022, she saw a psychiatrist, Dr. P. She was diagnosed as having depressive symptoms consistent with a major depressive disorder for which she was prescribed, anti-depressive / psychotropic medication. A short report, prepared by Dr. P and filed as an Exhibit to M’s first statement, records that following commencement on psychotropic medication, M showed initial improvement in her mental health but was “subsequently lost to follow-up after 16^th May 2022”, i.e. barely more than a month later. It is further recorded that M re-presented on 23^rd January 2023 with significant clinical depression. There was also reference to “a stressful marital relationship”. Psychotropic medication was reinitiated, and M was advised to follow up within 15 days. Plainly, the parties were struggling.

M was unable to sublimate her grief into displaced sport and gym activities. She was withdrawn and, as I understand F’s evidence, lethargic and disengaged. This is the antithesis of all he believed in. Having convinced himself that his grief was behind him, he had no real insight into M’s continuing pain. At some point, he came to see this as character failure on her part and would push and goad her. He repeatedly called her fat and lazy. He deprecated her as “a maid”. He proffered some complicated and entirely unconvincing explanation for his use of this term, but I am satisfied it was a simple insult along with the others. I accept the evidence that F was not cautious as to when or in front of whom he was rude to his wife. It is equally clear that lack of caution extended to the children.

F accepts that he called M these names, though he seeks to minimise it. He proffers the defence that M reciprocated and was abusive to him. I have no doubt that she endeavoured to respond in kind, but significantly, I gained the clear impression from both, that she responded rather than initiated. By way of illustration, F told me that M mocked him for “not having a single hair on his head”. I think it likely that she did say that. It struck me as offending F’s vanity rather more than I expected. However, it must have been entirely obvious to F how chronically depressed his wife was. He would also be fully aware of the underlying reasons behind it, not least because she repeatedly asked him to engage in therapy with her. His personally critical and demeaning remarks, set in this context, reveal his words and behaviour to be cruel and abusive. It should be said that it is he, not she, who is demeaned by them.

This was accompanied by an active decision on F’s part to “freeze his wife out”. He told me, with no insight into the calculated cruelty of it, that he stopped communicating with her, “deliberately” speaking “as little as possible” and confining his exchanges to monosyllabic remarks. F regarded the marriage as over. M was isolated, alone, unsupported and suffering from persistent and significant clinical depression. This is the mother of his children, with whom he was once, on his own account, “besotted”. I have no doubt that whatever F may say about his displacement of grief for S, her illness and death must have taken its toll on him. Similarly, I can see that he was not temperamentally equipped to help his wife in her grief and pervasive depression. Nevertheless, whatever term one applies to F’s behaviour, it is calculated (on his own account), cruel (objectively), abusive to a woman who was manifestly sad (to use F’s own word). It is, in this context, vindictive and it carries more than a hint of sadism about it. It requires to be identified as such. Ms Kirby KC, on behalf of F, submits that F was unusually candid in cross-examination and should be given credit for it. I disagree. It struck me that F had no insight at all into the significance of his own admissions concerning his actions and behaviours, and thus, no apprehension that the serious findings I now make against him are rooted in his own evidence. For completeness, I note that his written responses to the Schedule reveal none of the “candid admissions” (to use Ms Kirby’s phrase) that characterised his oral evidence.

Following her own father’s death, M asked her husband if he would put her inheritance, around £900,000, into his account. Both agreed she did this spontaneously and that the suggestion emanated entirely from her. Later, when the marriage entered real difficulties, M asked what had happened to this money. F told her that it had all been spent on J’s school fees. He knew this to be nonsense. M is less financially acute and took it to be truthful. The money went into what is a joint financial asset and is indivisible, as such, from the other funds. F’s response was calculated merely to hurt M and fuel her already considerable insecurity. She comes from a wealthy family and strikes me as never having had to concern herself greatly with financial matters.

On 3^rd February 2023, M took an overdose. In her statement, M describes herself as having “hit rock bottom to the extent I could not go on”. M has, in these proceedings, prevaricated about the true state of her mental health. She has done this, recognising that whilst it explains some of her behaviour, it has the real potential to disadvantage her in her aspiration to parent V. It also raises questions as to the extent to which her depression compromised her emotional availability to her children. Her recollection of 3^rd February 2023 is further clouded by the fact that she took an overdose of tablets at home before getting into a bath full of water, up to her shoulders or chin (the latter on F’s oral account). Her memory of that period is confused. Indeed, I think that she struggles, for reasons that I find entirely understandable, to structure her experiences of the last few years into a consistent narrative. Grief and conflict have clouded her perceptions of life around her. As such, I do not find her a wholly reliable chronicler of events.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the evidence surrounding M’s attempted suicide is that in his account, F told me that when he found M in the bath, he also saw marks round her neck, which he, it seems rightly, considered to be indicative of her also having attempted to strangle herself. He told me that there was a stepladder in the bathroom, which I took to be associated with what he described as an attempted “hanging”. There has been much discussion as to whether this was a “serious attempt at suicide” or “a cry for help”. I do not feel qualified to draw a clear conclusion either way, however, these dual strategies; overdose and strangulation, seem to me to point to a genuine attempt. They certainly indicate a profoundly unhappy woman. What is most striking though is that on this important feature of the case and despite the voluminous documentation filed, neither M nor F had at any point, in either of their statements or Schedules, referred to any attempted hanging. When F volunteered it, as he did in evidence, M immediately accepted the truth of it. There was not a moment’s hesitation. F’s account was so fretted with detail that it bore the inimitable hallmark of accuracy.

F’s history of the day is that he returned to the home at around 11.45am, having collected V from school. He emphasised that he considered it very fortunate that it was he, and not V, who discovered M. F said there was a bottle of pills on the floor, some of the pills having been scattered around. He told me that his first response was to drain the water and ensure that V did not see what was happening. M describes herself as drifting in and out of awareness. F, as best I can understand his evidence on this point, describes her as “drowsy”. In his written statement, F asserts that melatonin (which were the tablets he says were on the bathroom floor) is a natural chemical that induces sleep. He also says that it is impossible to overdose or damage organs with this medication. He is almost certainly correct on both counts. He tells me that he knows something whereof he speaks, because his business is in the pharmaceuticals industry. F also was aware that two weeks earlier, M had been prescribed psychotropic medication. Nonetheless, he did not telephone for an ambulance. He told me that he drained the water and left M in the bath, presumably in her damp clothes and telephoned Dr. P, who, it is said, advised that it would be impossible to overdose on melatonin, no mention, apparently, of whether the psychotropic medicine might generate a greater risk, had that been taken. Indeed, all the written accounts fail to engage with the fact that M had psychotropic medicine in the house.

F states that Dr. P said that he should take his wife to the hospital. F was unclear as to when that visit should occur, but in any event, he did not call an ambulance or take her to the hospital until two days later. There is no account of F explaining to Dr. P that there was evidence of an attempted hanging. Given all these circumstances, I cannot see how it was anything other than reckless, at best, on F’s behalf not to have called an ambulance or taken M directly to the hospital. I have heard convoluted explanations from him as to why he did not, but I find them unsatisfactory.

F is jealous to guard his own and his family’s reputation. There are two specific illustrations of this, which I will refer to below. It may be that he did not want to generate a ‘scandal’. Additionally, I have been told that attempted suicide carries criminal sanction in Dubai. Even allowing for both possibilities as explanations, I consider that the failure to seek immediate and urgent medical treatment at this incident can only indicate that his wife’s welfare was not his most immediate priority, as it ought to have been in such a situation. I find F’s behaviour extremely troubling. It signals a coldness and lack of basic human empathy.

M believes that F “committed [her] to a psychiatric hospital and prevented her relatives from contacting her”. F told me that as he was taking M to hospital, she was very frightened. As part of what I accept is probably standard procedure, she was relieved of her mobile phone. It ought to have been an instinctive thought on F’s behalf to inform M’s family what had happened, as soon as possible, in order that they could provide what comfort they could. He did not do this. When it came to light, M’s family were very angry and upset. It generated a rift which has not repaired. M was able to prevail upon her maid, when she visited, to use her mobile phone to contact her family. Again, I find F’s insensitivity very striking. In the context of the wider evidence above, I think his behaviour is rightly characterised as controlling.

I now turn to the parties’ respective relationships with their children. F contends that M’s abduction of V and her obstruction of contact has been calculated to weaken her relationship with her father. I agree. The adverse impact on V of her deracination, without preparation from all that was familiar to her, will have been significant and enduring. I have seen no recognition of this on M’s part. There can be no doubt that F was deeply interwoven into the fabric of V’s life. He had made it his personal objective to be there for her in a way that he did not consider that he had been for S. Her day-to-day routine, her parties, her schooling, her homework, were all part of F’s day-to-day routine too. He had time on his hand, and he dedicated it to his daughter. I accept that M would have been frequently lethargic and low. From F’s perspective, the removal of her father from her life in this drastic way will undoubtedly have been enduringly painful.

By Summer 2025, the family had become entirely dysfunctional and the atmosphere toxic. Prior to the annual trip to the UK, there was a decision to go to Kenya. There was an element of business involved but it was planned as a holiday. It is agreed that one evening, they all went out to dinner with a large group of old friends whom they had acquired during their years there. There was an incident, which though superficially innocuous, sparked, what I find to be, a very significant row, though F endeavours to minimise it.

Something unidentified in the evidence prompted one of the guests to ask J if he liked coming home from boarding school in America. That strikes me, potentially, as an unusual question. M contends that F regularly spoke down to her in public and that she felt humiliated. It may be that one of the guests picked up on the unpleasant atmosphere in which this family undoubtedly were living. J, unsurprisingly to my mind, said that he preferred being at school. J is close and loyal to his father. The extent to which he tries to please him is abundant in the evidence. This must have been a spontaneous, unguarded response. He is eighteen years of age. F’s reaction was extreme and at least a little hysterical. M describes F as “aggressive” in his reaction to J. She says that he berated him and threatened to cancel his school fees. She told me that he called his son “stupid” and told him to “get out of my house if you don’t like coming home anyway”. F was hurt by what he perceived as J’s disloyalty. In his own evidence, F, once again, accepted the substantive facts of this incident, particularly the threat to take him out of school. However, F told me it was all over in 15 minutes. I sense that may have been true, for him.

There was not, however, a moment’s reflection on F’s part as to why J might have responded in the way that he did. Whilst some of M’s recollections are blurred and confused, this one is clear and, in effect, corroborated by F’s own account. She emphasised it, in her statement, as a point in which, for her, matters “came to a head”. This was not an incident in which she was the victim but one in which her eldest son was. For various reasons, M and J’s relationship has become strained, though it was not always so. The prominence that she accords to this row signals her instinctive understanding of why J answered in the way he did. Her criticism of F’s behaviour reflects, in my analysis of her evidence, a recognition of F’s self-centred and immature response to the incident. He accepted that he felt humiliated in public by his son’s response. He was undoubtedly angry. I have no doubt that he has forgiven his son now, but he has never reproached himself for his own reaction. It could not be more plain that on this particular occasion, J was caught off guard and indicated his own unhappiness at what, for him, constituted family life.

There is a parallel with this incident elsewhere in the evidence. One of M’s strategies to combat her grief was to write a book of poetry. In it, she processed key features of her life, but mostly, she tells me, her loss of her child. For reasons that she has not discussed, and I do not speculate on, she arranged for the book to be published and in her own name. She did not tell F anything about this. He discovered it when somebody mentioned the book in a casual conversation. I think it is right to describe his reaction, again, largely on his own account, as furious. He feels belittled by some of M’s verses which he interprets as indicating that she did not love him when they were first married. He has obviously read the poetry and appears to accept that M talks of love “growing” on her part towards him. Nonetheless, F regards the book as a public act of treachery. The self-centred assuredness which no doubt has been very effective for F in the world of business renders him ineffectual and inept in his important interpersonal relationships. Despite his confidence, work ethic, self-discipline and his determined physical fitness, it struck me that F is in so many ways every bit as unhappy as his wife.

M’s concern is that J and V are replicating their father’s behaviour towards her. J may not yet have the maturity to understand the grinding and pervasive character of his mother’s depression. It is understandable for him to be frustrated with his mother’s lethargy and listlessness. However, I accept M’s evidence, which I find is consistent with the wider canvas, that J expresses himself in the boorish and arrogant language of his father when speaking to her.

J has undoubtedly been both directly and indirectly absorbed into the litigation by his father. On issue of the divorce petition, M described J as saying “what is wrong with you?... what do you want?”. She relates him calling her a “selfish, old, lazy, fat woman”, echoing his father’s language. In her statement, she recalls an occasion “around 19^th August 2025” when J came into her room in “an aggressive manner” after speaking with his father privately for some time. He insisted that he needed access to her phone. M was aware that he was trying to add his fingerprint to her phone “to open it without me”. She took her phone into the bathroom and J followed her. Later in the evening, she recalled that he asked for the phone again. When she refused, he called her a “selfish old woman” and left for the airport the following morning without saying goodbye. I have no doubt that M loves J very much, indeed, I have no doubt that both parents love their children. However, I consider that there is clear evidence that J aspires to please his father. His interests have gravitated towards those of his father, particularly regarding the gym and physical fitness. F’s evidence is that he has actively encouraged this. The two, I note, share a bedroom on J’s return journey to America for school. This is because they want to and not for any reasons of economy. I am also clear, again because I do not consider it to be uncontested, that F has discussed these proceedings on the telephone when his son was present in the hotel bedroom. Against this broader evidential matrix, I am satisfied that M’s account is accurate when she describes her son’s increasingly dismissive demeanour towards her.

M goes further and suggests that her husband has made veiled threats to have her killed on several occasions. This has not been put to the assay in cross-examination. I do not consider it to be necessary to resolve it, having regard to the overriding objectives of this hearing. Neither do I consider it necessary to evaluate whether J has joined in with his father. It is sufficient to say, as I do, that J has begun to replicate his father’s deplorable behaviour towards his mother and that this has been with his father’s tacit and insidious encouragement.

In relation to V, M makes the following observations in her statement:

“[V] is a young girl and easily influenced. I am concerned that [F] is consciously working to drive a wedge between [V] and I and damage our relationship. [F] buys [V]’s affections, constantly buying her presents. When he travels for work he buys her at least one gift per day. [V] is impressionable and very much sees [F] as the fun parent who gives her things, as he is the one with the resources in the relationship. [F] does only the fun things and refuses to discipline the children. He won’t enforce any rules – for example, if [V] has homework for school which she doesn’t want to do he will argue ‘she can just leave it’. He enjoys the fun and easy side of parenting, but I do feel that I am very much on my own trying to instil any discipline into the children’s lives. Like any parent I love the fun times and the joyful parts of parenting, but also understand we are parents not just friends. We have to guide the children and they do need some boundaries in their lives for instance over screen time, bed time, school work and sometimes saying no to things they want.”

It is clear that both parents have different parenting styles. F’s strong belief in structure and order finds expression in his parenting style too. However, I sense that M can also be rigid. F considered that M’s preference for V doing her homework as soon as she got home rather than having a break beforehand was the wrong way of doing it. M preferred to get it out of the way. F also considered that M taking the opportunity to brush V’s hair, to untangle it, whilst she was having her breakfast on a busy school day morning was the wrong approach as well. When V cried or complained, M says that F took her side. I noticed that, in his own evidence, F referred to his “backing” V. I regret to say that I do consider that M’s instinct is correct when she senses that F is trying to recruit her to his team. F’s approach is dogmatic. He could not permit of the possibility that parents should be united in their approach. There is only a wrong way and a right way, and his is the latter. He thought his style was, to use his words, “logical” and therefore permitted of no contrary opinion. I am not saying that either parent is right, but the reality is that on a school day, the right way is simply that which works. F lacks flexibility and his disrespect for M is contagious to his children. Essentially, of course, the problem is the complete absence of communication between both parents which opens up fertile territory to a child who wants to play the parents off against each other to get their own way.

Liberated from the absorbing challenges of generating a successful business and cushioned by his secure financial position, F has, and again I emphasise on his own account, brought all his considerable energy and focus on to his children’s lives. It does not seem to have occurred to him that in this arena, he is a novice and his wife already an experienced parent. Her skills may have been blunted and buffeted by her sadness and depression. That will have to be assessed for the welfare stage of this case. However, the preponderant evidence points to F needing to be loved as a father. This is, of course, the reward for good parenting and can not be its objective. It is the children’s right to have a relationship with both parents, not the parents’ entitlement and certainly not their gift.

As I have foreshadowed in my short discussion of the framework of the applicable law, I have focused solely on the issues which I considered it necessary to resolve in order effectively to focus the welfare analysis that will follow. I have also indicated that, having heard the evidence, I consider that a psychological / psychiatric assessment of F is as important as that already required in relation to M. At the centre of this very sad dispute are lives which have been devastated by the death of a child, where skilled help may be required to enable them to grieve more healthily. With some diffidence, because this is really a question for others, by ‘lives’, I am not referring only to the parents. Both children strike me as caught up in the vortex of their parents’ grief and are at risk of sustaining collateral emotional harm in consequence of it. If this hearing, which has been painful to both parents, helps them to realise that the adult conflict is an indulgent, futile waste of energy, and that their focus should be on cooperatively co-parenting both of their children, each respecting the other, then the pain of the hearing will have been worth it, and the dividends great.