News & views
What the papers say
Latest news: Focus on marriage break-up costs
The
Independent, Sunday, 30 March 2008
Some 45 per cent of all marriages will end in divorce, according to
government figures.
Based on current divorce rates, the Office for National Statistics (ONS)
estimates that just under half of all marriages will break down, almost
half of those before their 10th anniversary. In 1979 just 34 per cent
of marriages ended in divorce, rising to 37 per cent in 1987 and 41
per cent in 1993.
In the light of such statistics, legal experts and financial advisers are urging married and unmarried couples to ask themselves how they would survive financially following a break-up. Meanwhile, prenuptial agreements, covering such areas as the division of property, assets and pension plans if the couple or civil partners separate, are becoming increasingly popular in the UK.
Assuming that divorce and death rates remain unchanged from 2005, around 10 per cent of married couples will celebrate their 60th or diamond wedding anniversary, with 45 per cent of marriages ending because of divorce and 45 per cent on the death of one partner, according to the latest ONS Population Trends survey. After 20 years together, a couple's chances of breaking up drop to just 15 per cent.
Marriage rates in England and Wales have fallen to their lowest
level since records began
By Margaret Davis, PA, The
Independent
Wednesday, 26 March 200
Marriage rates have fallen to the lowest level since records began,
according to figures released today.
Provisional figures for 2006 published by the Office for National Statistics
(ONS) reveal the number of marriages fell 4 per cent to 236,980 compared
to the previous year.
The marriage rate for men over 16 was 22.8 per 1,000, and for women 20.5; the lowest rate since 1862.
This is the culmination of a steady decrease in the number of marriages in recent decades, bar a brief rise between 2002 and 2004.
The average age for those getting hitched has gone up by around five years since 1991, and in 2006 the average age for a first marriage was 31.8 for men and 29.7 for women.
The figures also reveal that more people are getting remarried.
Since 1981, the number of unions that were the first for both people has fallen by more than a third, accounting for 61 per cent of marriages in 2006.
Remarriages have fallen by a quarter in the 25 years to 2006.
Since 1992 there have been more civil ceremonies in the UK than religious.
The 2006 figures show that 66 per cent of ceremonies were civil, up 1 per cent on the previous year and up from 47 per cent since 1990.
Religious ceremonies continued to decline in popularity, down 7 per cent since 2005 and by half since 1991. Over the same 25-year period the total number of marriages fell 23 per cent.
Additional finalised figures for 2005, also published today, show that the sharpest fall in the number of marriages occurred in London (29 per cent) and the smallest in the North East (3%).
Divorce rates also fell by 8% compared to 2004.
The decrease in the number of marriages has been partly put down to a change in the law in February 2005, designed to crack down on "sham" marriages carried out for purposes such as securing a visa.
Judge awards Heather Mills a settlement of £24.3million
in her divorce with Sir Paul McCartney
According to David Byers and agencies of Times Online,
Heather Mills said she was "very, very pleased" and stated
that she had been offered £15.8million by Sir Paul.
The media will be full of stories today and in the coming weeks but
Times Online went on to qote Heather Mills as saying,
'I don't remember the figures because the most important thing is just to get this over and done with.'
Story at Times
Online
See our article re Litigants
in person
Mills/McCartney High Court Ruling
As the couple were unable to reach a decision about the split
of their finances earlier this month, the Judge, Mr Justice Bennet,
will decide what the settlement should be.
According to the Judicial Communications Office, the Judge will hand
down his ruling on March 17. He will then decide 'whether or not to
make the judgment public in whole or in part,' a statement revealed.
Read
the full BBC News article
View our Divorce Video
Divorce Aid is pleased to announce that their video 'What to
do when your friend gets divorced' made in conjunction
with VideoJug (Life Explained on Film), is now available for viewing
online. It is aimed at the younger age group but its advice is of course
applicable to older age groups. To date, over 2000 people have viewed
it.
See it at What
to do when your friend gets divorced
Honeymoon is over for gay weddings
Ceremonies fall by 55 per cent after a boom year
The number of gay weddings has plummeted by more than 50 per
cent in the past year. Civil partnerships became legal for homosexuals
in December 2005, allowing them to acquire the same sorts of tax and
pension rights as straight married couples.
Initially, thousands of gay and lesbian couples held ceremonies. However,
a survey by the Local Government Association found that all the 40 councils
across England they surveyed had experienced a fall in the number taking
place - the figures show an average drop of 55 per cent in 2007 from
2006...
Denis Campbell
Sunday February 3 2008
Read full story at The
Observer
Chinese divorce rate rockets as little emperors grow up
Rosalind Ryan and agencies
Friday January 25, 2008
A leap in the Chinese divorce rate last year of nearly 20% has been
blamed by experts on the country's restrictive one-child policy and
a loosening of divorce laws.
Read full article at Guardian
Unlimited
Discovering the real cost of divorce helped my own marriage
to last
This is a very honest article by Daisy Goodwin in
this week's Daily Mail, Femail section. She recalls her thoughts and
emotions when her mother left and her father remarried.
Certainly, it is only now, after 19 years with my husband, that I realise
how profoundly my own life was altered by my parents' divorce. I was
five when my mother, the designer Jocasta Innes, walked out of the home
she shared with my film producer father, Richard Goodwin, to live with
a novelist from Newcastle, who was six years her junior ...
Pretty soon afterwards he married my stepmother, Christine, and so,
from the age of seven, I lived a divided existence.
Read the full article at Daily
Mail/Divorce Story
By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor, The Independent
Published: 12 October 2007 Reproduced here by permission of The Independent
Sir Paul McCartney and his estranged wife, Heather Mills, are close to reaching an agreement over a divorce deal claimed to be worth as much as £60m after a secret meeting at the High Court in London.
Sir Paul and Ms Mills began the first stage of a mediation process that ius designed to find common ground between the two parties over the financial value of the settlement.
Accompanied by their lawyers, the couple arrived separately at the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday before heading for a hearing in Court 16, where they spent the day thrashing out terms. The press and public were strictly excluded from the court.
A final deal could outstrip the £48m that the insurance broker John Charman, 53, was ordered to pay to his former wife, Beverley, in May which was the biggest contested divorce settlement to date.
Sir Paul and Ms Mills, 39, who have a three-year-old daughter, Beatrice, announced last May that they were ending their four-year marriage. The 65-year-old musician, estimated to be worth £825m, is expected to consent to a structured settlement which would provide Ms Mills with a lump sum on top of further payments for the care and support of his daughter until she reaches the age of 18.
Since news of the breakdown of the marriage first emerged, estimates of how much Ms Mills would be paid have been the subject of wild speculation, with some media suggesting a figure of £200m. Most lawyers agree that because the marriage was a short one, any agreement will be worth much less.
In January, lawyers for Ms Mills denied she had been offered £32m.
Her solicitors, Mishcon de Reya, said in response to an article published in the News of the World: "There has been no offer made whatsoever at any time to our client and therefore no settlement has been agreed."
According to sources close to the couple last night, the mediation process was continuing and was unlikely to yield an immediate settlement.
When the couple announced their split, Sir Paul denied statements that his wife had married him for his money and said the parting was "amicable" . But subsequent spats in the courts over what was believed to be care of their child and public statements by Ms Mills did not support this.
They married in June 2002, four years after Sir Paul's first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer. Linda and Sir Paul married in 1969 and had three children, Mary, Stella and James.
That marriage was one of the entertainment world's most enduring unions. After Linda's death, a family spokesman said they had "never spent a night apart in the 30 years that they have loved one another".
Sir Paul and Ms Mills met at a charity event in 1999 and their relationship immediately made headlines, not simply because of the difference in their ages but also because of the supposed disapproval of Sir Paul's children.
The world's media were waiting yesterday when Sir Paul and Ms Mills arrived at First Avenue House in Holborn. In an attempt to evade press intrusion they arrived separately in cars at the back of the court building. Sir Paul wore a dark-grey suit and Ms Mills was covered in a blanket as she was helped from the car to the court building by minders.
Once inside the court building, they used the judge's stairs – a completely separate route within the public building – to reach Court 16.
Before the hearing began at 10.30am, the spyhole in the court door was covered from the inside and a row of office chairs was placed across the corridor to blockade the entrance.
Sir Paul left the gallery at 9.15pm, but not before his waiting car appeared to narrowly miss getting a ticket. To a storm of flashbulbs, he walked on to the pavement and into the road.
For a short while, Sir Paul posed in the middle of a media scrum before saying that he was off.
Ms Mills left later with her head covered.
The
Independent
Youth conduct problems in lone parent families increase at
the same rate as other types of familes says new controversial report
from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London
Some food for thought for all of us
See King's
College report
Even
French football striker Thierry Henry feels the effects of his recent
divorce
It
must be difficult changing clubs after a painful divorce with everyone
expecting goal after goal. Robert Pires says that Henry is weighed down
by his divorce and no wonder he hasn't scored yet.
Read Reuters
report
Osama
bin Laden's son and British wife to divorce
A British woman who married a son of the world's most wanted man, Osama
bin Laden, is to divorce because of fears she and her husband will be
killed, a report said Wednesday.
"We are both in fear of our lives," Jane Felix-Browne told
The Sun. "People are opposed to my marriage because I am British.
I wasn't prepared to see the man I love die. That is why we have decided
to end our marriage."
Read
the full AFP article
So, what's in a kiss?
Well, it all depends if you are a man or a woman according
to new research by the University of Albany in America. Men tend to
use kissing as a means to an end and women, on the other hand, see kissing
as a way of assessing their relationship. Males tend to use it as a
means of achieving sex or getting back together and females use it as
a way of checking on their partner's commitment.
Research also confirmd that the fisrt kiss can be a real turn-off despite
being romantically attracted in the first place. But remember you have
to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince/princess.
Read the article at Science
Daily
Estranged husband not entitled to share of wife's £35million Lottery
win under Scottish divorce law says Leonard Mair, an expert in Scottish
family law at Morton Fraser, and a member Divorce Aid.
Scottish family law is quite different from the English system.
'When a couple separates in Scotland, a list of assets and liabilities
is drawn up and divided between each side. After that neither has any
claim on the other’s future income or assets regardless of whether
their situations change before they get round to actually divorcing.'
'Divorce in Scotland is simply an administrative step rather than a platform to squabble about money and children,' Mr Mair added.
But Gerry Cunningham is a lucky man. Despite separating from his wife
Angela eight years ago, she has reportedly promised to share her good
fortune with him.
Read
Times Online Article by Micheal Herman
See Morton Fraser Solicitors details in Edinburgh
and Glasgow
The Body Shop survey shows that teen attitudes are a time
bomb to domestic violence
Thu, 9th Aug 07
Research released today by The Body Shop, as part of their
Stop Violence in the Home Campaign, reveals that the next generation
will be as much at risk of domestic violence as today unless action
is taken to educate young people on developing positive and respectful
relationships.
The research showed that 1 in 5 teens (21%) believe it’s ok to
tell a boyfriend or girlfriend what to do, with the figure rising to
more than one in four (27%) in young men. A further 1 in 10 teens think
saying sorry makes it ok after they’ve hurt or forced a partner
to do something. A worrying statistic considering that on average, a
woman will be assaulted by her partner or ex-partner 35 times before
reporting it to the police.*
Nicola Harwin, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid commented:
“This research is very worrying. As young people enter relationships for the first time they must be aware that allowing consistent power and control over a partner in any relationship is abusive and not acceptable. We need to work harder to reach young people and make them aware of the risks”.
In light of the fact that one in four women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime*, The Body Shop® survey findings paint a worrying picture of youngsters attitudes towards domestic violence. Many do not seem to realise that domestic violence does not have to be physical or where emotional abuse can lead, suggesting that there is need for greater awareness at an early age to tackle this issue.
Zuni, 17, a survivor of domestic violence, said:
"My ex-boyfriend was very controlling, he used to check my phone, tell me what to wear and who I couldn’t be friends with. On one occasion he slapped me in front of his friends because I 'answered him back'. He made me feel really bad about myself and that I was always the one in the wrong. If I did what he said - things would be ok. I wish I’d known then that his behaviour was the problem - not mine. I think it’s really important for young people to know what a healthy relationship really is and that they don’t have to put up with being treated badly, like I did. I was lucky to leave but others might not be. Young people have to spot the signs early”
Nicola Harwin, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid commented:
“The only way we can do this is being able to finance awareness campaigns and offer support services aimed at young people. Contributions from companies like The Body Shop are vital in tackling domestic violence ”
Toby Morgan, Values Manager for The Body Shop® UK & ROI commented:
"The report highlights a number of grey areas in young people’s attitudes to domestic violence, particularly emotional abuse and where the boundaries lie. There is a need for greater awareness and support of charities like Women’s Aid so that help and information is available for young people. Throughout 2007, The Body Shop® is raising much needed funds for Women’s Aid by donating all profits from sales of our special edition pink Hi-Shine Lip Treatment** to the charity".
The survey was commissioned by The Body Shop® to support their latest campaign to heighten awareness about the impact of domestic violence, as well as raise funds for national domestic violence charity, Women's Aid.
Women’s Aid run a website for children and young people, www.thehideout.org.uk
which aims to support and inform about domestic violence. Funds raised
from The Body Shop Stop Violence in the Home campaign will help to develop
this vital resource.
If you or a friend need help, contact
Women's Aid
A gender savings gap is putting women
at risk of a bleak retirement
But there are things they can
do to secure a brighter financial future says the Guardian's Harriet
Meyer. She reports Doctor
Rake saying,
' Women are much less likely to be able to recover financially from
divorce because they are more likely to have given up, or scaled back,
their career during marriage and have even greater caring responsibilities
after divorce.'
Read the full Guardian
article
The quality of explanations parents give their child about
divorce has a significant link with subsequent well-being.
New research from charity Young Voice links parents’
communication skills with children’s self rated happiness.
Parents can tell children too much about sex, money or dad’s new girlfriend, but not enough about the children’s top priorities. In this study children reveal how good communication about their priorities can help them adjust to the major changes in their lives.
They also explain that arrangements made when they were small should be revisited when they are teenagers. ‘It is remarkable that only one third of children felt they could approach their parents about this’ said Adrienne Katz, project director. ‘Others feared parents would be angry, upset or sad or said their parents would not listen to them. Of parents who were asked to change arrangements – only 52% did so.’
This project is unusual in that it asks young people to rate their parents’ communication skills and explores their own priorities in a new way. Children are given the opportunity to tell adults what is helpful.
On Friday 15th June Young Voice launches a website, a film and a research paper as a result of work with 292 children and young people. For the first time there will be a forum for practitioners and parents to listen to young people’s perspectives on family break up.
About the project
When Parents part is funded by the Strengthening Families Grant. 292
children and young people have been involved through in-depth interviews,
surveys and making a film. 36 agencies were consulted in 4 regions of
England.
www.whenparentspart.org.uk is an online forum where practitioners can share good practice and explore challenges in child centred work. Parents can find advice from young people while solicitors and mediators can see their services through children’s eyes.
The film provides children’s experiences in scenarios to use as a trigger in discussions with parents. This is helped by a booklet written by an experienced mediator. It is intended for use by those who work with parents or families. (£15 including p&p)
The research is discussed in a research paper in our accessible and well known Young Voice Matters series, (When Parents Part by Emma McManus is available at £5 including p&p).
Practitioners, voluntary and statutory colleagues are invited to join the network of members and to share their ideas and advice with one another. Researchers are invited to submit a short description of recent or relevant work with a link to a full download or purchase.
About Young Voice
Young Voice is the national charity making young people’s views
count. We offer research, training, consultancy, and youth participation.
www.young-voice.org
Children have the right to have their views heard on matters affecting their lives. Read the article below:
Children say they aren’t told enough by divorcing parents
Most children whose mother and father divorce say their parents
do not adequately explain to them what is going on, or take into account
their views, according to a major new study by the charity Young Voice.
The charity, which canvasses young people’s views on a broad range of issues, also found that children who feel they have been consulted cope better with their parents’ divorce.
Many children said they wished they could change access arrangements agreed while they were younger but most said they were too scared to ask their parents because they feared they would be either upset or angry.
“We have long known that family splits can have lasting and traumatic effects on children but this research shows that parents can do a lot to make the experience less damaging by communicating more openly with their kids,” said Adrienne Katz, director of Young Voice.
Although earlier research has established a link between the extent to which children’s views are taken into account in a divorce and their subsequent wellbeing, this is the first study based on the children’s own assessments of their parents’ communication and their own happiness.
Around one in three young people will experience the separation of their parents during childhood. Key findings from the Young Voice study include:
· Fewer than half of parents (43%) explained how often the child would see the non resident parent – a top priority especially for boys.
· Fewer than half the respondents said their parents explained where the child would live.
· More than a third of children felt their views were not heard on any issues
· 60% of children who had been under the age of six at the time of the divorce wanted to know more about why it happened
· Fewer than a quarter of children were asked their views on how much time they’d spend with each parent.
· Although more than half wanted to change arrangements governing time spent with each parent as they grew up, only a third of these young people approached their parents about this because they feared the parents would be upset, sad, angry or simply would not listen to them.
Young Voice has produced a DVD and booklet offering parents, children and mediators advice on how to communicate more effectively during divorce. It has also launched a website: www.whenparentspart.org.uk
The study, part of a larger project on young people’s views on divorce, was based on 128 questionnaires and 54 one to one interviews with young people who had experienced the dissolution of their parents’ relationship. An additional 104 interviews were conducted with children who evaluated their experience of the CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisors and Support Service) service in relation to their parents’ divorce.
'Get a divorce' campaign goes mobile
on trucks
We recently reported (see below) that billboards advertising
divorce in Chicago, had been torn down by the council due to compalints
from the public and law firms. The female lawyers responsible for the
slogan, 'Life's short. Get a divorce,' showing pictures of a partially
clothed man and woman have now turned their ad campaign around by putting
the adverts on sides of trucks.
In response, another billboard has been erected. It reads: 'Life's short. Your marriage doesn't have to be.' Watch this space for further developments.
'A miser is being hunted by police
after his ex-wife was stabbed
to death the day before he was due to pay her a £100,000 divorce
payout' - read the article at the Daily
Mail
STOP PRESS 6 June Man
is arrested
Alan Miller has lodged an appeal with the European Court of
Human Rights in Strasbourg
The Daily Telegraph reports, It was a ruling that alarmed wealthy
husbands across England by establishing London as the divorce capital
of the world for wives.
But now, the man who was forced to hand over £5 million to his ex-wife after less than three years of marriage is to challenge the ruling, claiming that his human rights have been breached. Alan Miller has lodged an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in a case that could rewrite the country's divorce laws...>>Daily Telegraph article
Millionaire loses divorce payout appeal Thursday 24 May
John Charman, a multi-millionaire businessman lost his appeal
on Thursday against a court order that he should pay a record-breaking,
48 million pound divorce settlement to his ex-wife. He had challenged
the award in the High Court's Family Division last year.
Justice Paul Coleridge awarded Beverley Charman of Sevenoaks, Kent, the 48 million pounds - 36.5% of their joint assets - the highest sum ever awarded by any British divorce judge. He said it had been a long marriage during which all the wealth was generated from scratch.
Mr Charman had offered his ex-wife £20 million out of their £131 million assets saying that it was "impossible for any reasonable person to spend in their lifetime". This would have left him with many more millions to spend; quite an impossible task if his thoughts were correct!
This was a long marriage as the couple met in 1969 as teenagers at school and married when young in 1976. They lived together in Sevenoaks until they separated in 2003.
Permission to appeal to the House of Lords was refused but his lawyers may still apply to the Law Lords for permission to challenge the verdict.
Editor's note: The text of Charman v Charman [2007] EWCA Civ 503 is
available via Family
Law Week
An article by our David Hodson summarizing the decision and analyzing
its impact will be published by Family Law Week in the next few weeks.
Divorce Aid is pleased to announce that a member of our Directory
of Family Law Solicitors has been short listed for Legal Aid Lawyer
of the Year
Exeter Solicitor, Norman Hartnell, has been short listed for
the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Award, by The Legal Aid Practitioners
Group that celebrates the work of solicitors and barristers across the
UK who have dedicated their careers to the service of some of the most
vulnerable members of society.
The panel of judges, chaired by Cherie Booth QC, will be making the Award at a ceremony in London in June 2007. The Prime Minister's wife said, “Someone needs to sing the praises of legal aid lawyers”, demonstrating her support for the hard-working, and hard-up sector of the profession.
Norman, founder of Hartnell Chanot & Partners, the largest family
law specialist in the South West, was nominated by clients, colleagues
and peers after a life-time dedicated to changing the face of family
law. Monica Cockett, a colleague and Research Fellow at the Department
of Child Health at Exeter University, said,
“Norman Hartnell has been at the forefront of developments in
Family Law since the mid 1980's. He has always put the needs of children
and support for the family above any monetary considerations. He has
been a long time champion of mediation, which offers parents the opportunity
to work together for more positive outcomes for their family and he
has moved family law forward in the South West. It would be a poorer
place without him.”
Norman has been singled out from hundreds of nominations for his commitment to providing legal aid services to clients, and he is the only solicitor in the Westcountry to be recognised for his achievements. A pioneer of family mediation, a collaborative lawyer, and an advocate for alternative methods of resolving family disputes, he gives freely of his expertise and time for all family issues and recently represented 5 children in care proceedings in which the Local Authority were keen to place the children within the family, uncovering a conspiracy to conceal the identity of a sexual abuser within the family who posed a significant risk to the children.
He is the secretary of the Peninsula Family Justice Council, has helped thousands of legal aid clients over the past 30 years and recently launched a new website devoted to family law with links to many regional and national organisations and a database of local support agencies from drug and alcohol abuse right through to contact centres and housing advice.
LAPG Director Richard Miller said, "Despite all the problems facing
legal aid practices at the moment, all the fears caused by the proposed
reforms, there are still thousands of lawyers across the country determined
to continue providing an invaluable service to their local communities.
They believe that everyone should have their rights protected and enforced,
no matter how poor or vulnerable they are, and no matter how rich and
powerful their opponent.
Every year, tens of thousands of people have the problems in their lives
resolved by the skill and hard work of these lawyers. They are the unsung
heroes without whose dedication, justice in this country would be a
sham."
Despite the difficulties imposed on legal aid firms, (over 200 firms have decided not to continue doing any legal aid work after April 2007, and many more have dropped some areas of law) Norman said, " Like NHS dentists, legal aid lawyers could soon be a thing of the past. The Government's proposals for the reform of legal aid, has restricted the ability of people to get the advice they need on the problems affecting their day to day lives, and it is the poor and most vulnerable most affected. I am determined to continue providing Legal Aid to needy clients and will campaign relentlessly that clients need the advice of experienced practitioners because of the complexity of their circumstances, perhaps even more so where there is insufficient money to go around or where there are highly conflictual contact cases. I am both shocked and delighted to be nominated, and would like to thank my clients and colleagues for their comments and support.”
Notes: Hartnell Chanot & Partners are the largest family law specialists
in the South West and possibly the UK; and are ranked as a leading family
law firm in Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession and the Legal 500.
See their Directory page
Please scroll down for other listed articles:
*'Life's short. Get a divorce' sign taken down
*Millions of Brits spend less than 6
hours a week enjoying time with their loved ones. Do you lead a balanced
life?
* Impending divorce led to Sikh woman's murder
*Unmarried couples win rights to half of shared properties
*Women account for nearly half of the millionaires in Britain
for the first time, research has revealed
* Mum uses $1 million settlement to help abandoned children
*Danes are the happiest people in Europe, a survey suggests.
But what is the secret of their contentedness?
*Children in Britain are increasingly likely to live in single-parent
families, according to a new report
*Only 20 per cent of people in cases which are funded by legal
aid opt for mediation
*A man charged with murdering a Melbourne lawyer outside his
office had accused the solicitor of "stuffing up" his divorce
settlement with his ex-wife, a court heard today
*Marie Osmond to divorce after more than 20 years of marriage
*Would you like the family courts to be more open/public? 'Confidence
and confidentiality: Improving transparency and privacy in family courts'
DCA publishes its findings
*Teenager Sam, via Divorce Aid, writes about his parents' divorce
for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children
*£135 million divorce fight relocates to England from
Spain - jurisdiction is so important in international cases
*'There's no hiding place,' says the CSA
*Lawyers are demonstrating outside Parliament today against reforms
to the legal aid system
*Bitter divorce led to wife's murder
at church in Arizona
*Scottish divorce figures soar
*If marriage rates went up, if divorce rates came down - if more couples
stayed together for longer, would our society be better off?
*Best friends? Children need mothers
*NHS facing dementia time bomb
*Can a mathematical formula predict which couples will divorce?
*David Cameron wants bad fathers to be treated like drink-drivers. Divorce
Aid responds.
*There are many stories today in the papers about the fall in marriage
numbers but this may be good news, says Christina Tait, Editor of Divorce
Aid.
*Bank charges: The rebellion gathers pace
*Paying the price for being in debt
*Britain's children: unhappy, neglected and poorly educated
Damning verdict on the ordeal of growing up in Britain today
*The Miller case
*Divorce laws 'are destroying marriage'
*Making divorce humane
*Unmarried couples to get rights on property
'Life's short. Get a divorce' sign taken down
Life, it appears isn't the only thing that's short in Chicago.
Billboards showing pictures of a partially clothed man and woman with
the caption, 'Life's short. Get a divorce' were removed withing the
week of going up. many people in the up-market neighbourhood and other
lawyers made complaints.
But business improved for Fetman and Garland, the two female divorce lawyers who thought up the idea. Will there be any takers in Britain? We don't think so.
Millions of Brits spend less than 6 hours
a week enjoying time with their loved ones. Do you lead a balanced life?
It comes as no surprise to hear
that we Brits are not achieving a good work-life balance especially
after the recent Unicef survey. According to the Independent
article, (scroll down to read this in full), which states:
'Despite living in the fifth richest country, the next generation of UK citizens experience some of the worst levels of poverty. The research found they regard themselves as less happy, and that they drank more alcohol, took more drugs, and had more underage sex than children overseas.'
So we are spending more time at work and do very little exercise as we spend too much time at the office and not enough on relationships, especially on our children and relaxation. If only we could spend more time on our relationships! Although many people have to spend an increasing amount of time at work, many of us use this as an excuse to be away from our families, to hide our discontent.
Cowardice is a fundamental flaw when relationships break up, even in long marriages. So much heartache could be avoided if only we were brave enough to voice our unhappiness before it becomes too late. Although divorce can come as a nasty shock, we at least have the chance to examine what led to it and also the chance to change our lifestyle and with that, create a new work-life balance.
Impending divorce led to Sikh woman's murder
Surjit Athwal, 27, went missing in 1998 after travelling to Punjab with
her mother in law, Bachan Athwal. A court was told that she was murdered
during this trip for having an affair and wanting a divorce. Both Bachan
Athwal and her son are charged with murder. They both deny the charge.
Read
more
The England& Wales divorce rate is at its lowest level
since 2000 says ONS but increase in over 60's age group divorcing
According to a report by the Office for National Statistics, there were
141,750 divorces in 2005 and this compares with 153,399 in 2004. This
equates to an 8% drop in the divorce rate. In Northern Ireland, there
was good news too with a 6% drop and a 3% drop for Scotland.
'As people become more aware of the divorce process and the toll it may take on all the family, particularly children, we understand that more people are reconsidering their options and working on their relationships,' says Christina Tait of Divorce Aid, an independent voluntary organisation which assists families through divorce and separation issues.
The figures show that only 50.3% of the people in England and Wales are married; nearly 33% are single, around 8% are widowed and divorcees account for around 9%. (32.9 per cent), widowed (7.7 per cent) or divorced (9.1 per cent).
Figures are not available for cohabiting couples and the divorce rate
is still quite high compared to our European neighbours.
The over 60's are the only age group to show an increase in the divorce
rate in 2005. This trend had been noted by Divorce Aid who reported
an increase in its 'silver surfer' cases with many long marriages coming
to an end, even as long as forty years. Reasons were given as realising
that people live longer and there is no need to stay in unhappy marriages
when the children had long gone. It was said to be a last ditch attempt
to find happiness but also leaving in its wake, some shocked and distressed
spouses.
Divorce Aid has also seen a huge rise in divorce inquiries with an international element in England and Wales in particular. As people travel and work abroad in increasing quantities, there is a corresponding increase in these type of divorces often involving several jurisdictions and problems re contact and residence for children.
Just as much care and planning is made for a wedding, equal care and
thought should be afforded to the divorce process. With the assistance
of expert family law solicitors, the process can be made as least painful
as possible. The fairly new and increasingly popular Collaborative Law
process is a dignified process to avoid court and lessen the emotional
toll on all concerned.
www.divorceaid.co.uk
Unmarried couples win rights to half of shared properties
Unmarried couples who split have won equal rights to a share
in their home - but only if they put it in joint names, the House of
Lords ruled this morning.
In a landmark judgment, affecting up to two million cohabiting couples,
a majority of the law lords, Britain’s highest court, ruled that
where a couple own a house in joint names there should be a presumption
that they own it equally.
Read the full Times
Online article by Frances Gibb
This is a clear warning to all cohabiting couples
to enter into a trust deed or co-habitation agreement at the very beginning.
Family law experts respond to today's landmark House of Lords ruling
on Times
Online law Experts
Women account for nearly half of the millionaires in Britain
for the first time, research from Datamonitor has revealed
British women entrepreneurs are achieving great success in business.
Datamonitor, the research group, reveals that there 376,000 millionaires
and around 46% of these are women - around 172,960 and the trend seems
to be growing by 11% a year. if this continues, there may be more women
millionaires than men. Nearly 4,00 women have wealth above the £5
million mark. Some divorce cases have seen several women being classed
as millionaires in their own right and as we reported yesterday, there
is one woman who used her settlement to aid orphans around the world.
(See article below).
There are many articles in the news on this subject. The Daily Mail, Femail section reports on women entrepreneurs in lingerie, recruitment and training.
Mum uses $1 million settlement to help abandoned children
In 2003, Karen Gordon, a newly single mum of two children,
saw a video of an orphanage in Hungary. This was an establishment which
was put on film in order to show the good care the children were receiving
but Karen thought that there was one basic thing missing and this was
loving care. basic food and shelter were of course provided but she
felt that love was of equal importance. Her mission then became to change
the lives of millions of abandoned children across the world. She started
a foundation, Whole Child International.
For more information on Gordon's organization, please visit: http://www.wholechild.org/home.html
ABC News reports that when asked why she didn't just enjoy her $1 million divorce settlement, she replied:
"Why did I not take the money and just live off of it? I would
have been bored, wouldn't I?" Gordon said. "This is rewarding
work. I work with the best and brightest in our country. That's priceless."
Read
the full ABC News article
Danes are the happiest people in Europe, a survey suggests. But what is the secret of their contentedness?
Have the Danes got the right work/life balance or are their expectations not as high as unhappy Brits and other Europeans? The BBC article quotes,
'Denmark is very consumer-oriented and very family-oriented. People are sure to leave work at 4.30pm. They work their eight hours and go home. Pressure to work overtime doesn't exist.'
Read the full BBC News article
Children in Britain are increasingly likely to live in single-parent
families, according to a new report
The survey by The Office for National Statistics said that
children in Great Britain are three times more likely to live in one-parent
households than they were in 1972. Last year, nearly a quarter lived
with just one parent.
90% of single-parent households are headed by mothers and single-parent families are three times more likely to live in rented accommodation than traditional families. Sadly, lone-parent families are also more likely to live in 'non-decent' homes. While traditional two-parent families are on the decline (down to 37% from 52%), single-parent families are increasing. Couples living together with no children rose from 6% to 25%.
Jane Ahrends, from One Parent Families, said while single parents might face poverty, the image of them as 'young, feckless women who deliberately get pregnant' was wrong.
'The vast majority of lone parents are ordinary working mums and dads in their 30s and 40s, who are just trying to do their best in circumstances they didn't choose,' she said. Ahrends also added that single parenthood was a temporary state, usually lasting around five years.
The full Social Trends report may be viewed at ONS
Only 20 per cent of people in cases which are funded by legal
aid opt for mediation
Too many family breakdown cases are going to court rather than being
settled through mediation, the National Audit Office has today reported.
Family breakdown cases which are resolved through professional mediation
are cheaper and quicker to settle. And academic research shows that
they secure better outcomes, particularly for children, as they are
less acrimonious. However, only 20 per cent of people in cases which
are funded by legal aid opt for mediation, and over half go straight
to the courts.
There is scope to improve the value for money of the legal aid budget through increasing the take up of mediation in cases of family breakdown. The National Audit Office found that, on average, a mediated case takes 110 days to resolve, and costs £752 compared to 435 days and £1,682 in cases where mediation isn’t used. In the sample of cases it reviewed, the NAO found that over 95 per cent of cases settled through mediation were resolved within 9 months and all within 12 months. However, only 70 per cent of cases completed by non-mediation routes were settled within 18 months.
Despite these benefits, take up of mediation in cases funded by legal aid is low: currently 20 per cent. Between October 2004 and March 2006, only 29,000 out of 149,000 people attempting to resolve their family dispute tried mediation. This excludes some 30,000 domestic violence cases which would be unsuitable for mediation.
Although solicitors and legal advisers have a duty to advise their clients of the option of mediation, a survey of clients indicates this isn’t always happening. In a survey conducted by the NAO, one in three people who had been through a family breakdown case said they had not been told mediation was an option. Of those, 42 per cent said they would have been willing to try it. Use of mediation rather than the courts would have saved the taxpayer £10 million in these cases.
However, there may be a financial disincentive to solicitors of advising people about mediation: if a case is settled out of court, this will result in a loss of potential fees for them . The NAO recommends that those solicitors who have significantly lower numbers of cases which go to mediation should be investigated to find the reasons for the low take up and, where these reasons prove unsatisfactory, should have their contracts curtailed.
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, said today:
“One in three in our survey told us that they had not been made
aware that mediation was an option. The Legal Services Commission needs
to publicise the advantages of mediation and remove the financial disincentives
to solicitors of recommending this option to their clients. Mediation
can provide a less adversarial route than the courts for many families
involved in family breakdown and result in savings in legal aid of over
ten million pounds a year.”
The full report by the NAO may be seen at PDF
Report
Divorce Aid Editor's note: Please see our Directory
of family law solicitors many of which promote mediation and offer legal
aid.
See our article on Mediation
A man charged with murdering a Melbourne lawyer outside his
office had accused the solicitor of "stuffing up" his divorce
settlement with his ex-wife, a court heard today
Read the full report at www.news.com.au
Marie Osmond to divorce after more than 20 years of marriage
Marie Osmond and her husband of more than 20 years, Brian
Blosil, have, according to Reuters News Agency, decided to divorce.
It will be Marie's second divorce as her first was back in 1985 and
there is a son now in his 20's from this marriage. marie and Brian have
seven children, five of which are adopted.
In a joint statement, they said:
'Though our marriage is ending, we continue to have a very amicable relationship. Our marriage has always been a faithful one, and neither of us is assigning fault for the divorce.'
They continued,
'Our children, as always, are our top priority, and in our deep love for them we will continue to jointly fulfill our roles as active parents in their daily lives.'
It's always sad to hear of long marriages ending in divorce, especially
with numerous children, but this couple's aims and friendship are quuite
refreshing. Let us hope that they are able to maintain their dignity
in the media spotlight.
Would you like the family courts to be more open/public? 'Confidence
and confidentiality: Improving transparency and privacy in family courts'
DCA publishes its findings
Foreword by Lord falconer, Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State
for Constitutional Affairs, and Harriet Harman QC MP, Minister of State,
Department for Constitutional Affairs.
'When we consulted last summer about the openness of family courts and
how it could be improved, we were clear that any proposals to make the
courts more open should not be at the expense of the privacy of those
people involved in family proceedings. In particular, we were clear
that children should be protected.
Many of the proposals were welcomed, such as making the rules consistent across the different family courts; and providing better information for people who had been involved in proceedings as a child. In fact, making the court process more open was viewed positively.
The response paper contains a detailed analysis of what people have told us, not only to the formal consultation but also through stakeholder events and discussion forums. One of the reasons for using a variety of approaches was to encourage people to contribute and ensure the voices of children and young people were heard and listened to. After all, they are usually at the centre of family proceedings, and reluctantly so in almost all cases.
We have considered what people have said very carefully and will reflect on the responses received before bringing forward our proposals.' Crown Copyright 2007
Wide support was received for increasing the amount of information on how the family justice system works and for giving information to adults who were children when involved in this process. This could take various forms such as providing a transcript or a summary of the judgment.
Concerns were raised about what more openness would mean for children and vulnerable adults in the courts. One way forward would be to allow more people to attend proceedings including the media and he latter caused much debate. There was much support for others to attend on application and subject to the discretion of the court. The following statement from the Association of Lawyers for Children emphasises the need to ensure that the family courts continue to operate in a child-focused manner,
'It is the welfare of the children and young people that the family justice system exists to prioritise and protect. We forget this at our peril.'
And the President of the High Court Judges of the family Division said,
'It is not in the best interests of children, who are subjects of litigation between their parents or in care proceedings, that intensely private matters should be laid bare to the public at large; nor is it in the public interest. Children of whatever age are, we believe, entitled to as much privacy as possible from intrusion by the media and the public during their informative years.'
When adults discussed the report, there was significant agreement that
allowing the media into family proceedings would be damaging to those
involved, particularly the children.
For a full PDF version of the report, click
here
Teenager Sam, via Divorce Aid, writes about his parents' divorce
for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children
When you hear that your parents are splitting up it can feel like your
world is falling apart. When everything begins to change and your parents
aren’t getting along as well as you would like, things can be
difficult to cope with. Genevieve Noble caught up with sixteen-year-old
Sam to find out what it feels like when you’re parents split up
and what helps make the best of a bad situation.
Read the full article at NHS
Great Ormond Street Hospital
Also see our Teenage/Young Persons' section
£135 million divorce fight relocates to England from
Spain - jurisdiction is so important in international cases
The property tycoon Jim Moore failed yesterday to stop his
ex-wife bringing her legal battle for half his estimated £135
million fortune to England...Read full Daily
Telegraph article
Please also refer to our International
Legal Section if you need advice.
'There's no hiding place,' says the CSA
They now use fines, prisons, bailiffs, debt collectors, tracing
agents and take payments from your wages at source.
The CSA is changing as part of a long-term project that is looking at every aspect of child maintenance. However, it will be some time before a new system will be in place. Until then we will be helping the Government to get tougher on parents who avoid their financial responsibilities to their children.
We have a number of powers to help track down parents who avoid us. We are using information held by other government departments, such as HM Revenue & Customs and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (the DVLA).
If we still can’t find them by doing this, 8,000 of our employees can search information from credit reference agencies. Private sector specialist tracing companies are also helping us with particularly difficult cases. It is a criminal offence if someone fails to give us information or gives us information that they know is false. We can take them to court and they could be fined up to £1,000.
If the non-resident parent does not give us the information we need to work out child maintenance, we apply a rate based on the number of children they should be paying child maintenance for. This is called a ‘default maintenance decision’ and in many cases this works out higher than if we worked out how much they should pay using their net weekly income. We will continue to take enforcement action to get them to pay this amount, unless they provide us with the information we need.
The legal action we can take
If the non-resident parent has a job the first thing we try
is to take the money direct from their wages. For new cases we aim to
do this within four months from when we first told them what they should
pay. An employer is required by law to take maintenance from parents’
wages if we tell them to. Currently 160,000 parents pay child maintenance
this way.
If this does not work we will start by applying to the courts for a liability order for the missed child maintenance. This allows us to take legal action to get the money owed. Between October 2005 and October 2006 12,900 liability orders were granted. This is up from 10,500 between March 2005 and March 2006.
The legal action we can then take will depend on each case and we can
use more than one at a time. In summer 2006 we started working with
private debt-collection agencies to collect money from parents who had
not paid for a number of months, or years. Their bailiffs act on our
behalf to seize the parent’s belongings and sell them to get the
money owed. So far 23,000 parents have had their cases pursued by private
debt collectors.
We can take a range of action through the courts. 13,000 parents were
presented with a summons and taken to court between October 2005 and
October 2006. This might include getting a third-party debt order to
freeze money belonging to or owed to the parent. This stops them from
using their bank account or getting money from an unpaid invoice if
they are self-employed and we can then ask for the child maintenance
to be paid.
If we can prove to a magistrate that the parent has refused to pay the
child maintenance they owe, we can apply to have their driving licence
taken away or for them to be sent to prison. Between October 2005 and
October 2006 400 parents received immediate or suspended prison terms.
Even if the parent is disqualified from driving or sent to prison, they
will still have to pay all the money they owe.
Read more about Enforcement
Powers
Find out What
we can do if a parent moves abroad
Bitter divorce led to wife's murder
at church in Arizona
A successful businesswoman shot to death outside an
East Oakland church had offered her estranged husband three of their
jointly-owned six homes to settle a bitter divorce, but he angrily refused
and killed her, according to her family and police...
Read full divorce/murder
story
Scottish divorce figures soar
Divorces in Scotland reached their highest level for more than
a decade last year.
More than 13,000 marriages were dissolved in 2006, a 19% increase on
the previous 12 months. Meanwhile, the number of marriages dropped to
its fifth-lowest level since Victorian times...
Read the full article in The
Herald
If marriage rates went up, if divorce rates came down - if
more couples stayed together for longer, would our society be better
off?
David Cameron has spent his first 15 months as Tory leader
promoting himself as thoroughly modern. But when it comes to supporting
marriage he is an unashamed, up front traditionalist...
Read the full Daily
Telegraph article
Best friends? Children need mothers
More and more women prefer to be their children's pals, rather
than giving them the guidance and discipline they so desperately need
- and the results are often disastrous. Why can't they just grow up,
asks Judith Woods
What makes a good mother? Read
the Daily Telegraph article
NHS facing dementia time bomb
'The report (Dementia UK) highlights the fact that families and individuals
are bearing the biggest burden of caring for dementia sufferers - a
burden this study makes visible on a scale never before acknowledged'
said Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society.
'This burden falls heavily on families weakened by divorce as lone
parents struggle to care for their offspring as well as elderly parents
with dementia, says Christina Tait, Editor of Divorce Aid.
Read
the Guardian article in full.
The full report should be published later today.
Can a mathematical formula predict which couples will divorce?
There are no general laws of human relationships as there are
for physics, but a marital researcher and group of applied mathematicians
have teamed up to create a mathematical model that predicts which couples
will divorce ...
See Maths and divorce
David Cameron wants bad fathers to be treated like drink-drivers.
Divorce Aid responds.
Errant fathers should be made to feel as "socially unacceptable"
as drink- drivers, David Cameron says.
According to the article in the Daily Telegraph, 'As with drink-driving, it is a combination of government action and culture change that will make the difference,' Mr Cameron said. He wants young people to grow up with a strong male influence in their lives.
The BBC commented,
'Mr Cameron has argued that a lack of role models was fuelling gang
culture and called for fathers to be compelled to take a greater role
in bringing up their children.'
Christina Tait, Editor of Divorce Aid, agrees that errant fathers should be made to pay for their children's upbringing and felt that more recourse to the Courts system rather than a revamping of the CSA would bring more financial security for low income single parent families.
Poverty is one of the main causes of social deprivation and lack of social responsibility in some of our youth. 'There's a feeling of hopelessness and vulnerability in this sector and the lack of a father's input can only make the situation worse.' Tait added, 'All fathers should be encouraged to continue contact with their children. Although their roles may be different after separation or divorce, their parenting skills are still a much-needed resource and they remain an important part of their children's development and identity.'
'But when mothers are left to cope alone without the fathers' support, they can only do their best, Tait continued. 'Even though they cannot be a male role model that Cameron endorses, they attempt to be both mother and father.'
Nine out of ten parents living alone with their children are female and only 3% are teenage mums. The average age of a lone parent is 35. They come from many different backgrounds and ethnic groups but all have one thing in common, their determination to better the lives of their children. They cope with all the responsibility and challenges that this entails and we must congratulate the many families who battle to succeed against all the odds.
For those families who get into difficulties, let us remember that many are from two parent backgrounds. David Cameron called for fathers to be compelled to take a greater role in bringing up their children. Tait stated that it would of course be impossible to compel them and all we can do is try to provide a positive role model for our children by interacting and relating to them, especially teenagers, on a daily basis, whatever our gender.
There are many stories today in the papers about the fall in
marriage numbers but this may be good news, says Christina Tait, Editor
of Divorce Aid.
Some 244,710 people got married in 2005 . This was the lowest
number since 1896, the lowest marriage rate since 1862 when records
began. The Office for National Statistics said the rates in England
and Wales were 24.2 per 1,000 unmarried men over 16 and 21.6 per 1,000
unmarried women.
Despite the decrease in the numbers of people marrying, marriage remains the main type of partnership for men and women in Great Britain. Marriage is also the aim of most people even after divorce according to recent surveys. People in marriages tend to be happier emotionally and sexually. They also tend to be in better health with less depression.
In 2004/05 around half of men and women were married and one in ten were cohabiting. The average age at which people get married for the first time in England and Wales has risen to 36 for men and 33 for women in 2005. Cohabitation, however, has increased over the past three decades as marriage has declined.
This increase in the age of people when marrying may signify that people
are more aware of the importance of marriage and aim to prepare themselves
well. There has been a huge rise in media coverage of divorce and its
effects on families in recent years with Divorce Aid contributing. This
has undoubtedly played a role in people's awareness of possible future
marital problems and divorce. Today's youth also have had to contend
with their parents' divorce and consequences. This could all augur well
for the future of marriage.
Notes: For 'Marriage Care' preparation courses, please see Courses
Statistics quoted are from the Office for National Statistics
Bank charges: The rebellion gathers pace
20,000 people add their names to the campaign
Politicians join clamour against excessive fees
Banks claim customers are to blame for costs
By David Prosser, Personal Finance Editor
Published: 21 February 2007
Beleaguered bank bosses are refusing to accept they have been illegally
charging customers for breaching their overdraft limits, as they face
an overwhelming response to The Independent's report on the issue yesterday.
Consumer groups that have been campaigning to persuade customers to reclaim thousands of pounds worth of bank charges stretching back six years reported a huge increase in the numbers of people planning to complain. Martin Lewis, the founder of Moneysavingexpert.com, the internet site that has been leading the campaign since November, said more than one million people will have downloaded complaints forms and template letters by the end of the week.
Mr Lewis said more than 20,000 people had downloaded the forms by 3pm yesterday, following The Independent's story, with hundreds more logging on every minute. "Thanks to that report, people are now realising this is something that is real," he said. "It's not a gimmicky thing that is only for financial nerds, but a straightforward process anyone can follow in order to claim a refund that is potentially worth thousands of pounds."
Which?, the consumer group that has been running an "Anti Social Banking Order (Asbo)" campaign for more than a year, said it too had seen a massive spike in customer complaints yesterday. "We've had a huge response since the publication of your story," said Which?'s Helen Ainsworth last night. "It's been a phenomenal day - we've had 2,400 downloads already; in one day that's more than a tenth of the total who had previously asked for our template letters."
The issue of overdraft charges also generated an angry chorus of response from Westminster. Vincent Cable, the Liberal Democrats' treasury spokesman, said: "What is emerging very clearly is that the banks have been allowed to get away for a very long time with excessive and unjustified charges, whose legality is doubtful. It reinforces the case for a robust champion of the consumer, in the form of the Competition Commissioner. We have calculated that every customer is now paying something like an average of £320 a year to bank shareholders.
"This has risen by nearly half, in real terms, under a Labour government. There is a real issue of very high levels of profitability that is not justified."
He also condemned the high street banks for "acting like a cartel" by threatening to end free banking if the Office of Fair Trading compelled them to reduce their charges.
A spokesman for George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, said: "Conservatives see tackling personal debt and financial exclusion as an issue of social responsibility. There is a role for businesses, individuals and government to work together.
"Encouraging successful business and helping the increasing numbers of families who find themselves with too much debt is not incompatible. They should go hand in hand."
Britain's leading banks continued to insist they had done nothing wrong by charging unauthorised borrowing fees of up to £40. John Varley, the chief executive of Barclays Bank, which yesterday announced record profits of £7.14bn for 2006, said: "If you look at a basket of retail banking services in the UK and compare the cost of them to the equivalent cost in Europe or America or Asia, they are a lot cheaper - and I mean a lot cheaper."
Mr Varley's colleagues in the banking industry attempted to present a united front. A spokesman for HSBC, which is expected next week to announce profits of close to £12bn for 2006, said: "We do not believe the charging regime is illegal."
A spokesman for Lloyds TSB added: "We believe our charges are transparent and we make it clear to our current-account customers that if they exceed their overdraft limit, requiring the bank to provide a new limit on their account, the bank will charge for this service as it involves an administrative process which has costs associated with it."
Royal Bank of Scotland, the owner of NatWest, the final member of the big four high street banks that dominate the current account market, also rejected accusations that it had been illegally charging customers.
"NatWest believes its charges are fair, reasonable and transparent and treats all claims on a case-by-case basis," its spokesman said.
"There really is no need for a customer to get into an unarranged borrowing situation. At NatWest, we encourage customers to contact us to agree any borrowing in advance."
In addition, the Halifax Bank of Scotland group, now the UK's fifth largest bank, also stood its ground. A spokesman said: "Customers have a responsibility to operate their accounts within the terms and conditions... these state that if they have insufficient funds to meet payments or enter into overdrafts that have not been pre-arranged, then charges will be applied to their accounts."
However, despite their insistence that they have not broken the law, all the banks now admit they have routinely been refunding the charges of customers who complain about the cost of unauthorised borrowing. HSBC's spokesman said: "This is dealt with on a case-by-case basis, but if a customer is sufficiently aggrieved by the charges, chances are that they'll get a refund."
The Office of Fair Trading is now expected to provide a final ruling within weeks on unauthorised borrowing charges.
Last April, the regulator shocked the financial services industry by ruling that credit card companies that charged more than £12 when customers exceeded their borrowing limits were almost certainly behaving illegally. It also warned that the same rules were likely to apply to banks and promised an investigation.
Despite the warning, leading banks have continued to charge fees of up to £40 when customers go over their overdraft limits. Additional charges are payable for bounced cheques, failed direct debits and in instances where the bank decides to honour a payment even if the customer does not have sufficient funds.
British contract law entitles the banks to recoup their costs when a customer breaks the terms of their accounts, imposing charges for administrative work such as sending out warning letters. However, making a profit on such charges is illegal and consumer groups have consistently argued that the level at which the fees have been set breaks the law for this reason.
Research by Which? concluded that the banks earned £4.7bn from unauthorised borrowing charges last year alone.
Winners and losers
Helen, 25, from Newport;
I ran up a £2,700 overdraft with Barclays during my degree and when I did a masters, switched to HSBC. I went over my overdraft limit by £10 and the charges began to pile up. HSBC never understood the futility of charging me £80 in one day for being over my overdraft limit when I had no money to pay the charges.
Claimed back: £773 (HSBC), £120 (Barclaycard), £48 (Monument)
Ms Devon, 50;
I have been on invalidity benefit for 15 years, hard enough to manage without the bank slapping a £35 charge on if I go over my £100 overdraft limit. In the past five years, my overdraft at the most has been £181 for about four days; the majority of the time my account is in credit. I have paid over £430 in bank penalty charges in this time.
Nicky, 29, from Kent;
I work for one of the big banks and successfully gained my husband's charges back. I am launching my own claim for just under £1,000. I am very aware how little manual intervention there is in bank charges and thought the bank's profits would have been reduced but clearly not!
Claimed back: £1,000
Sam, 31, from East Sussex;
I have received over £1,500 back from Abbey. I nearly went all the way to court - boy, are they stubborn. Six days before court, they settled, but admitted no liability.
Claimed back: £1,500
Name withheld;
Co-Op bank charged me £39 for going 3p overdrawn, I complained in the branch, the manager agreed to refund the charge but took my card off me, cut it up and closed my account immediately.
Nick, 31, from Plymouth;
What made me laugh (or cry) was the letter they sent to say I was overdrawn, but would not be charged if I covered it by 3pm. Of course, the letter arrived the following day, when it was too late! I claimed back £200 from Lloyds TSB. Charges are completely unreasonable, and are just a way of making profit.
Claimed back: £200
Naomi, 24, from Luton;
I have successfully claimed back more than £400 from Barclays in bank charges. I am now in the litigation stage with my Barclaycard, and have just helped my brother get started on claiming his money back against Abbey.
Claimed back: £400
From moneysavingexpert.com
Paying the price for being in debt
More people are struggling with their finances - that's the finding
of research carried out exclusively for BBC's Breakfast as a leading
charity, Consumer Credit Counselling Service, says more people are asking
for help. The number of people getting in touch with the CCCS rose by
65% last year. You are not alone. Read Divorce
Debt Help for ways to seek help today.
To read the ICM poll results, see Debt
Poll
Britain's children: unhappy, neglected and poorly educated
Damning verdict on the ordeal of growing up in Britain today
By Jonathan Brown
Published: 14 February 2007
British children are languishing at the bottom of an international league
table examining the physical and emotional well-being of youngsters
in the world's wealthiest nations.
Despite living in the fifth richest country, the next generation of UK citizens experience some of the worst levels of poverty. The research found they regard themselves as less happy, and that they drank more alcohol, took more drugs, and had more underage sex than children overseas.
They were also more prone to failure at school, to experience violence and bullying while suffering a greater number of unhappy relationships with both their families and peers.
The Unicef report, which prompted outrage from children's charities and embarrassment for the Government which has lavished billions on child health and education, placed the UK last in the survey of 21 nations, which included Europe as well as the United States, Canada and Japan.
British children came last in three of the six categories analysed, finding themselves in the bottom third for two others. In the second most successful category, education, the UK was ranked 17th, way behind the former eastern bloc countries Poland and the Czech Republic
The Netherlands topped the league, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Spain. The overall quality of life for children in the United States was judged only narrowly better than in the UK, finishing 20th in the table.
The report's author, Professor Jonathan Bradshaw of York University, said he was surprised by the findings. "This is the result of previous decades of neglect and shows how far we have to catch up," he said. "We knew the UK was high in child poverty and in the number of children living in workless households but we were surprised that it came consistently low across so many of the categories."
Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of the Children's Society, said: " Unicef's report is a wake-up call to the fact that, despite being a rich country, the UK is failing children and young people in a number of crucial ways."
Colette Marshall, UK director of Save the Children, called for an extra £4.5bn to meet the Government's target of halving child poverty by 2010. "It is shameful to see the UK languishing at the bottom of this table. This report shows clearly that despite the UK's wealth, we are failing to give children the best possible start in life," she said.
The shadow Chancellor George Osborne hit out at the Government. "This report tells the truth about Brown's Britain," he said. "The Chancellor has failed this generation of children and will fail the next if he's given a chance. We need a new approach."
The assessment, entitled Report Card 7, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries, is the first study of childhood well-being across industrialised countries. It analysed 40 separate indicators based on existing data.
Among the most depressing findings were that more than a fifth of UK youngsters rated their physical and mental health as poor - the worst among the rich countries surveyed. Girls reported lower levels of well-being than boys across all the nations surveyed with more than 27 per cent of 15-year-old females expressing dissatisfaction with their health compared to 16 per cent of boys of the same age.
Overall, youngsters in the UK were more likely to feel left out, awkward and lonely, than nearly all their peers in other developed countries, the report said.
Italy and Portugal topped the table with the UK, the US and Czech Republic propping up the bottom of the league when the quality of children's relationships was examined.
Among OECD counties, the UK had the second highest number of children living in single-parent families or with step-parents. Italy, Greece and Poland, traditional Catholic countries, enjoyed the most stable families. The authors said there was a well-established link between family breakdown, educational failure, poor health and reduced life chances.
Less than half of Britain's 11-15-year-olds said they found their peers " kind and helpful."
In terms of economic well-being, Britain was 18th in the table, with only the United States having more children living in a household where the income was less than 50 per cent of the national median.
While the report acknowledged that children today enjoyed unprecedented levels of health and safety and Britain was judged the second safest country behind Sweden in terms of the number of youngsters dying from accidents, the UK once again came in the bottom third of the table for infant mortality and low birth weight.
Meanwhile, British children fared better at school, at least up until the age of 15. But their position plunged when the numbers staying on in education and training were factored in.
A Government spokeswoman said it was committed to improving children's well-being and pointed out that 700,000 fewer children were now living in relative poverty than in 1998-99, while the number of children in absolute poverty had been halved.
Britain's children
Happiness
British children consider themselves the least content in the wealthy world. More than a fifth of UK youngsters said they rated their physical and mental health as poor - only Latvia, Russia and Lithuania fared worse. Girls reported lower levels of satisfaction than boys. UK youngsters were among the least likely to enjoy school or to rate their happiness levels as above average. Overall, they were the most likely to admit to feeling left out, awkward and lonely.
20th
Family & friendships
British children were found to have the worst relationships in the developed world. The UK had the second highest number of children living in single-parent families or with step-parents. Less than two-thirds of British families said they ate together regularly. Britain also came bottom of the industrialised national table when relationships among 11-15-year-olds were examined.
Last
Education
Regarded by Unicef as vital to a child's future life chances, Britain fared well when 15-year-olds' ability in reading, maths and science was assessed, ranking ninth. But the UK's overall position fell when its poor record in persuading pupils to stay on in education and training was taken into account.
17th
Health & safety
Children born in wealthy nations now enjoy unprecedented levels of health and safety. Britain found itself ranked second behind Sweden as the place where children are least likely to die in an accident. However, this good performance was marred by the UK's relatively high infant mortality and low birth weight rates. The UK also fared poorly when it came to the percentage of children aged 12 months to 23 months immunised against the major vaccine-preventable disease. It was ranked in the bottom third.
12th
Poverty & inequality
Despite being the fifth largest economy, Britain was ranked 18th for material well- being, beating only Ireland, Hungary and Poland. When it came to the number of children living in households where income was less than 50% of the national median, the UK beat only the US. British children were also among the most likely to have a jobless parent and in the bottom third for homes with fewer than 10 books.
18th
Sex, drink & drugs
The UK easily outstripped all other countries when it came to bad and risky behaviour. British children were more likely to have been drunk or had sex than those of any other country. The UK also had the second highest teenage fertility rate. British teenagers were much more likely to be involved in a fight in the past 12 months than other nationalities and more likely to have been bullied.
Last
'I feel like whatever I'm doing, there is someone watching me'
Leo, 14 North London
I am doing my GCSE's and am under a huge amount of pressure from my teachers and parents to do well. There is a lot of coursework to complete and I am always being nagged to do things like homework clubs and revision tests. The other thing that annoys me about my situation is that I feel that whatever I am doing, there is always somebody watching over me - the only times I feel that I can let go is when I am talking to my friends at school or when I am playing sports.
Chris, 10 Glasgow
I live in a rehabilitation centre - it's where people come to get better, where they can get off drugs and become themselves again. There are 300 toilets here. It's my mum who's coming off the drugs. I think that my mum is in now care because she could not cope with me and my twin brothers and my sister... who takes ages doing her hair. She [my mum] didn't have any money for school clothes... the reason my mum took drugs is because she was always asleep, sometimes she did not look well and was being sick, but that is just life.
Will, 15 Harrow
My biggest fear is getting mugged, but it is something you have to live with. When you go into town, especially on your own, and there are large groups hanging around it can be scary. Most of the time they get away with it... you get a few kicks to the face and they take your mobile or a couple of pounds. My younger brother was mugged. They stole his MP3 player and a few of my friends were mugged as well. One of them took a few punches and got a couple of kicks. And there have been a few attempted muggings. Being out in a group doesn't mean you won't get mugged either.
Stephen, 16 Cheshire
We're pretty lucky around here when it comes to poverty but we've done some projects which makes you realise how little some other people of my age have. For them, a room of their own would be an unbelievable thing, which I take for granted. I'm not surprised to hear that other countries in Europe are better when it comes to their attitudes to children and I think a lot of the headlines about hoodies has made older people, in particular, think we have got nothing to offer and that we are something to worry about.
Sadhia, 17 Middlesex
Every time I pick up a newspaper or hear another TV report about teenagers, it is always demonising us, rather than reflecting the reality for most of us. At the end of a school day, when we sometimes go shopping together, we're looked at suspiciously because we are taking up so much space. People are quite judgmental about teenagers, how we look, where we go, and I think it's a shame that middle-class children are treated with more respect than maybe someone who's wearing a hoodie.
Ed, 17 London
I spend time regularly hanging around my estate because that is how we socialise - we can't really have so many friends round to the house - but we don't cause any trouble and we have a good relationship with the residents. The police stop us fairly regularly, which I find irritating. Two of my friends were stopped and searched by an officer, who was rude and aggressive when they were doing nothing wrong. I have been stopped and searched twice and asked questions four or five times.
Kelly, 15 Cheshire
We've done the Victorians at school and you'd think that there wouldn't be lots of children in poverty any more. I think the Government is saying it wants everyone to have the same opportunities but I'm aware of how many children don't have them. I don't think people my age think there's any way of changing things through the Government. Politics is a bit of a switch-off and I never pay much attention to it. But that's supposed to be the way of stopping poverty - voting for changes through your MP.
Helena, 16 North Yorkshire
Most teenagers do drink, but it depends where they do it. I think it's silly to drink standing on a street, and I understand that this can be intimidating for adults. But it's difficult for us because not everyone's doing this, although people are going to pick up on the worst cases.
Samarra, 11 Hull
I have one leg shorter than the other so I have to wear a built-up
shoe. I can run but I always come last. I've got a younger brother and
an older sister with cerebral palsy. Mum is on income support. To get
things like new wheelchairs you have fill out a lot of forms. And there's
a lot of debt. At Christmas we look down the lists and if it is too
expensive, we're a bit poor, and it goes to next year. It would be good
if we had some money. What I would say to other children is appreciate
what you've got."
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The Miller case Guardian
Unlimited, 7 February
A City fund manager whose private life was dragged into the public domain
when he was ordered to pay his former wife £5m in a divorce settlement
is leaving his high profile job at New Star. Alan Miller had been chief
investment officer of the fund ...
Divorce laws 'are destroying marriage' By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent.
Published: 26 August 2006
The cheap and quick divorce laws in England and Wales are undermining the institution of marriage and need to be reformed to help prevent acrimonious break-ups, a senior Court of Appeal judge has warned.
The call for a change in the law comes from Lord Justice Wall, one of Britain's foremost family law judges, and follows a string of bitter and high-profile divorce battles. Under the antiquated divorce laws of England and Wales, couples have to blame each other if they want a quick divorce, which is usually granted within six months.
In an interview with The Independent, Lord Justice Wall called for an end to fault-based divorces and the introduction of a system that puts the needs of children and financial provision at the heart of the process. He said: "I do believe strongly in the institution of marriage as the best way to bring up children and that's one of the reasons why I would like to end the quick and easy divorces based on the fault system. I think that it actually undermines marriage."
The judge, who was a member of the Court of Appeal which heard the recent case of Miller v Miller in which the former wife of a wealthy businessman was awarded a £5m settlement after a three-year marriage said that big-money divorces which grabbed the headlines distracted attention from the misery of thousands of ordinary divorces which take place each year. " Fault has become almost entirely irrelevant to financial claims post- divorce, yet conduct remains the most important peg upon which to hang a decree," said the judge.
Last night, the family law reform group Resolution welcomed Lord Justice Wall's intervention. Jane McCulloch, the vice-chair of Resolution, said: " We are behind the principle of no-fault divorce because we would like to see an end to couples having to make allegations about each other's behaviour."
Just over 300,000 people were married in 2004, compared to 350,000 20 years ago. But most recent figures show that almost 170,000 people were divorced last year, making Britain the capital of Europe when it comes to marital separation.
In the past few months a number of very public divorce battles have shown how the law has helped to stoke the fires of acrimony in divorces involving the rich and famous. "Divorce has become very easy so that it is a box-ticking exercise, something administrative dressed up as a quasi-judicial function," said Lord Justice Wall, whose view is known to be shared by other senior members of the judiciary.
Lord Justice Wall says the courts are not adequately equipped to deal with the social and emotional consequences of divorce, which he says rarely leave anyone unscathed and can often destroy lives. "People who divorce often simply don't know what they are letting themselves in for and the family courts are not well geared-up for dealing with the bitter battles which follow, particularly over children," he said. "I am only sorry that the Government did not pursue non-fault-based divorce when the seeds had been sown for a change to the post-separation consequences of divorce."
In 2001, Labour abandoned plans to scrap fault-based divorces on the ground that parts of the scheme, which sought to encourage mediation, were thought not to be working. But Lord Justice Wall says he "did not buy" this explanation, although he accepts that the Law Commission's original proposals had been "mauled" by a series of amendments in Parliament. "I still think the Family Law Act would have helped make couples think seriously about the care of their children and proper financial provision," he said. "But divorce is very emotional and people often bring unfinished business from the broken relationship into court; their positions become polarised and, particularly in disputes over children, they sometimes think of using the courts to seek revenge.
"For many people, the fact that, for example, one spouse ran off with someone else remains of paramount importance. But it is not relevant to the issues the court has to address. I do believe in getting rid of fault because it should have nothing to do with the divorce process and shouldn't affect the result.But it will be difficult because people actually don't like not being able to blame someone in a divorce.
"They will say fault is what matters 'He's gone off with someone else, he's broken the contract. Why do I have to give her or him more money'. Mr Miller was saying the same thing 'Why should I give this woman more money? I don't think she was a very good wife'."
Earlier this year, the House of Lords ruled in favour of Mrs Miller and said that fault was irrelevant in financial divorce settlements. Now Lord Justice Wall says fault should be removed completely from the divorce process. He says that the system has become "cynical and utilitarian" and not fit for the purpose for which it is now intended.
The architects of our first divorce laws, which influence the rules today, designed the legislation to reflect society's disapproval of a breakdown in a marriage which often had a negative social consequence for women.
But Lord Justice Wall argued: "That's all changed since the war. Now a divorced woman has no social stigma, so I would welcome an initiative that got rid of fault. Under the abandoned Family Law Act, couples had to think about the consequences of their actions by ensuring that they had made provision for their children and their finances before they would be granted a divorce. Now it looks like we will have to wait another generation for reform of the divorce laws."
A judicial reformer
Nicholas Wall's judgments often attract the unwanted attention of fathers'
groups whose members have posted his name on the internet and sent him
hate mail. But Lord Justice Wall, 61, is in the vanguard of a reforming
movement in the judiciary which has helped pave the way for open justice
in the family courts. Called to the Bar in 1969 before taking silk in
1988, his forward thinking on family law has propelled him to the upper
echelons of the judiciary. Three years ago he was appointed a judge
in the Court of Appeal where he has sat on some of the most important
divorce cases of recent years.
Celebrity splits
THE McCARTNEYS
Sir Paul McCartney filed for divorce in July in the hope of a quick
settlement with his estranged wife, Heather. Both had hoped for an amicable
split, for the sake of their two-year-old daughter, Beatrice. Sir Paul's
petition for the break-up of the four-year marriage is understood to
have cited Lady McCartney's "unreasonable behaviour". The singer was
said to have described his wife as "argumentative" and "rude to staff".
Lady McCartney has hit back by saying she would be filing counterclaims
in British and American courts. She is reported to be claiming £200m
but most lawyers believe the final pay-out will be much less.
THE MILLERS
In May the House of Lords upheld a ruling that Melissa Miller should receive a £5m divorce settlement from her husband, Alan Miller, who is worth more than £17m.
Ms Miller had argued that one reason she was entitled to a larger share of her husband's assets was that he had committed adultery. But the law lords, in a ground-breaking ruling, said fault should not help determine how much a spouse receives in a divorce settlement.
Instead, Ms Miller won her case because the courts decided Mr Miller had earned large sums during the marriage and that she was entitled to think her financial position would last for life.
THE LINEKERS
The former England footballer and TV presenter Gary Lineker and his wife, Michelle, were divorced after 20 years of marriage earlier this month. Mrs Lineker was granted a decree nisi on the grounds of her husband's " unreasonable behaviour". In documents, she said the 45-year-old Lineker's behaviour caused her "stress and anxiety". They separated in April when she moved out of their £2m mansion in Berkshire. Mr Lineker, said to be worth £30m, did not defend the petition. Neither attended the hearing in the Family Division of the High Court before District Judge Caroline Reid.
Leading article: Making divorce humane. Published: 26 August 2006
This Government's only serious attempt to reform the divorce laws came to nothing. Five years ago Labour shelved a legislative package devised under the previous Conservative administration that would have scrapped the concept of finding "fault" in one party as grounds for divorce. This package would have also compelled couples to attend meetings to discuss their problems and seek a reconciliation. All this was put aside. And apart from a tentative pilot scheme to teach divorcing parents conflict management skills two years ago, the Government has stayed well clear of this area ever since.
Yet the deficiencies in the divorce system that prompted the Government to attempt reform in the first place remain as glaring as ever. As Lord Justice Wall, a distinguished court of appeal judge, tells The Independent today, the lingering existence of the concept of "fault" promotes conflict. The fact that a divorce will be granted sooner if the behaviour of one party can be shown to be "unreasonable" encourages couples to accuse each other. As many of those who have gone through this process testify, this is deeply unpleasant for all involved.
It is also unfair to the children of divorcing parents. Not only is it traumatic to be caught in the middle of an acrimonious separation, if two parents are not co-operating, there is little likelihood that adequate plans for access and childcare will be in place by the time the divorce is finally granted. This is no small consideration. More than half of divorces in England and Wales involve children under the age of 16.
The solution is to complete the process begun by the 1969 Divorce Reform Act and fully liberalise the divorce laws. Ministers claim they dropped their original plans for reform because they feared a backlash from couples forced to wait longer for a divorce while they attended compulsory meetings. Yet this was always the flaw in the original package. The idea that forcing couples to talk will result in a significant number of them getting back together remains unproven.
So while compulsory mediation is a bad idea, the scrapping of fault remains sensible. This is not a question of making divorce "easier", as some will doubtless claim, but making the system more humane to all involved. The Government should bring this issue, that sadly affects a growing number of people, back on to the agenda.
The choice: When a child decides to move parents
As Molly Campbell is made a ward of court in Pakistan, Elisa Bray - who chose to live with her father at the age of 11 - describes what it's like to go to court and apply for custody with the 'other' parent
Published: 09 September 2006 Read this article.
I can still remember that feeling of separation. My mother could not look me in the eye, the day, aged nearly 12, I went to court and said I want to leave my mother to live with my father.
And all these memories were brought back, 13 years later, because of a news story: Molly Campbell, the 12-year-old girl from Scotland who left her mother to live with her father in Pakistan. While my situation involved neither cultural nor religious differences, and my move was within two miles of my mother's home compared to thousands in Molly's case, it was the question asked by both newspaper columnists and callers on radio talk shows that brought home the parallel between our stories: "Can a 12-year-old child make such a decision?" Or, put another way, "How can a 12 year-old child know what is in their best interest?" Hearing this question, and the common response that "a 12-year-old is just a child" and, "children don't know a lot" took me back to 1993. Just a child? Too young to make a decision? It forced me to reflect on my own actions.
Molly defiantly reiterates that the decision to move to Pakistan was her own: "I told them in my letters I was going with my dad and my family, that I was safe and it was all my own choice." Molly's parents were, like mine, estranged. Molly's situation differs from my own because the proper procedure was not followed for her to live with her father. Unlike Molly's, my case was dealt with legally, with both parents involved and present before a UK court and the assistance of a Cafcass (welfare) officer. But the question over whether a young girl is emotionally or mentally equipped to make such a choice remains the same.
My mother was given custody of me when my parents divorced. I was then two. While Molly's home life with her mother in Scotland has been described as unhappy, and, more condemningly by her elder brother, as a "living hell", mine was anything but. I have wonderful memories of time with my mother: of her devotedly blow-drying my hair as I perched on a stool in the kitchen in front of Neighbours; the surprise birthday parties she put on for me; our mutual love and affection.
We lived in a flat in Fulham, west London, which my mother chose because it was near the doctor's. Two doors away was a dodgy working men's pub which has since metamorphosed into a swanky bar. Back then there was a stabbing outside the pub and I remember the drunk old leery men hanging around. My mother had to deal with a burglary the night we moved in. But we would deal with the intimidation using our own catchphrase "eyes and ears" as we inconspicuously entered our cosy home.
My father remarried 18 months later, and I spent much of my weekends with him and my stepmother. Two years later, my half-sister was born. Aged five and a half, I was delighted. I still have the letter my father wrote to me announcing the arrival of my new baby sister in big capital letters and the picture he enclosed of her, hours old, in her hospital crib. A sister! Having a playmate would certainly make a change from my only-child days. My little sister became my best friend. On weekends and holidays we were inseparable and I revelled in her childish unconditional adoration of me. I was her role model and she became my ally, precociously standing up for me in any kind of family dispute.
One night, when I was 10, I was sick. While my mother soothed me as I vomited into a bucket, the phone rang. It was a call that would change the course of her life - and mine. On the end of the line was the man who she calls her first true love and soul mate, but from whom she had to part when she was 19 and he 25. He'd heard that she had since married, had a child, separated and was now single - like him. Every time I retched my mother would come running. She would then excitedly resume the phone call with the man she had not seen for more than 20 years. After two hours of interrupted conversation, that night he drove from n