Practically corrupt system of justice

I have read lots here over the course of a very acrimonious divorce. I'm a male litigant in person and have just reached a settlement at an FDR after a very clear wake up call that the system is hugely stacked against a litigant in person. The judge at my FDR quite literally could not take the time to look at me as he addressed me, he read a large and very dishonest case summary from my STBX's barrister and waved my case summary / position statement at me to suggest he'd read mine too.

The barrister then had about 95% of the hearing time, with the judge happily nodding and agreeing and I was given about 30 seconds before the judge stopped me and made it clear that the key points of my case were not relevant, that my STBX's cohabitation couldn't possibly make any difference and generally questioned the honesty of my case. I have my children 50% of the time and in fact it's more than that over the last two years as my wife left to pursue her affair and despite my STBX's Form 'E' admitting this arrangement the judge was incredibly rude and dismissive when I stated this point in my presentation to the court, cutting me short and saying "but do you really though?"

I was absolutely horrified at the clear bias and the hundreds of pages of documents, months of time and effort and thousands of pounds of costs was suddenly put into perspective when I realised that absolutely none of that meant anything at all. I made a decision then and there to settle that day, the shear disgusting and dishonest nature of the entire proceedings was something that I wanted nothing more to do with. Even having come to an agreement the barrister managed to twist the facts in her draft court order and despite showing their solicitor a photograph of the barristers written offer which clearly proved it was a total fabrication the order was simply issued.

I sent a written submission to the court with photo evidence that the barrister has not been accurate in her draft summary which was totally ignored and a very short email was sent to me to say the judge had approved the order. I pushed hard to receive the actual email along with the timestamp and to my absolute astonishment the email from the judge to the barrister made reference to a webinar that the barrister was giving soon and wished her well with that. I knew the hearing was biased against me from the moment I sat down but to see it so clearly laid out in front of is sickening and disgusting in equal measure.

These people socialise together, are part of a business network and have to continue to work together in the future and they have no expectation of ever seeing a LiP again. To call it justice is totally ridiculous and they are costing you many 10's of thousands of pounds to boot. To cap it all, their solicitor who has been extremely aggressive and difficult throughout these proceedings was blunt enough to suggest that I was mistaken in what I remember about the agreement (despite photographic evidence to the contrary) and that it was actually my fault for not having anyone to represent me.

Honestly, I'm not a whinger but quite how any of these people sleep at night is beyond me, it's the very worst kind of corruption as it's masked in a veil of justice and as a respondent you feel that some level of your morality is being questioned at all times. Good luck to anyone trying to secure a fair deal for themselves but I would strongly caution anyone to seriously consider whether risking the rest of their lives to the whim of a lazy and dishonest judge is something they can justify

Completely agree with you, this was my experience also and that of many other people. My experience was of lying judges, predatory lawyers and being told these people would somehow be capable of delivering a "fair" outcome. The experience radicalised me to the point where I voted for Brexit on the basis that it would reduce the reach of the English family court, which to be fair to me it has.

They know what they are doing as there is a perfectly fair family law system in Scotland and in most countries in the world and Scottish society hasn't collapsed but obviously the system as they currently have it setup makes them a lot money.

It's kind of telling that even someone who benefitted greatly from the current system call's it 'archaic' and is now at the forefront of trying to change it basically to the Scottish system.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45004289

All the best.

I am so sorry to hear your story fartoolong. Sadly it does not surprise me. I have been fighting a highly litigious solicitor for 2 years, who have done everything in their power to undermine me. Including, totally false allegations, attempting to subvert & delay court orders etc. It has brought me to my knees mentally. I have sent you a private message, which you can fine under your profile. If you are willing to talk about your experience I would like to know more, I have an upcoming FDR.

Concerning Baroness Shackleton's bill for fairer financial settlements, I posted about this in the summer under the title,
'Support new bill for fairer financial settlements'. I suggested people write to their MP's to put pressure on to get these ridiculous, outdated divorce laws changed....Sadly it did not receive much interest. The MP's do not care about being fair & nor does the English judicial system....But if the general public realised that in England, as soon as you get married, you are basically saying you are prepared to give away 50% of everything you have ever earned....Even if you had all the assets & they were accrued many years before meeting your spouse, I believe there would be uproar.

As far as I know, if you were unlucky enough to be the richer financial party when you met your spouse....Even if you had 100% of the assets, there were no kids & both worked etc.....The best you can hope for is a 60/40 split, but more likely to be 55/45% split, even if it wasn't a long marriage...Oh and that split will take into account the tens of thousands spent on legal fees.
So if you have saved on legal fees by being LIP, but the ex has spent a fortune on legal fees, the ex's legal fees will still come out of the joint pot....it encourages litigation & wastes a fortune on legal fees.

Hi Chevette
I read your comment about the legal fee's coming out of the joint pot with concern....how is that possible? It was my understanding that costs can only be awarded if there was evidence of bad behaviour? Is that not the case? I'm an LIP and the STBX has costs now running over £50k. I have responded to all the Court Orders for further disclosure, in full and on time?
On what grounds can the Court order me to pay the STBX legal representation fees?

Ophelia, it is my understanding that the court will work out any assets eg house equity etc.They will also calculate all the debts the Couple have, it will be seen as a joint debt. If it's possible they will expect these debts to be paid off from the assets, so that mortgage capacity is not affected. It's all about 'Needs'. So if the less well paid spouse decides to spend £50k on legal fees thier mortgage capacity will be badly reduced, so a court will likely order their debts are paid off from the joint pot of assets....Not fair at all, if the other spouse has been careful & not spent anything near £50k on legal fees....I stand to be corrected if I am wrong on this.

Thanks for your reply. There’s so much conflicting information out there - I suppose it all depends on what happens on the day.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

In a 'needs' based settlement (which is basically when there isn't sufficient surplus based capital to cover both parties and is clearly the norm in most situations) then any debts will be taken into consideration when assets are divided. It's one of the things that hugely frustrated me in my proceedings, my ex wife who had committed adultery and behaved very badly throughout the separation simply spent money on legal advice and support and wasted a large portion of our marital pot. There was no 'order as to costs' but the reality is I paid half of her inflated fees.

Given that my FDR hearing lasted less than an hour, the judge couldn't be bothered to read more than a few sentences of a position statement and that the court bundle ran to 350 pages it all seemed completely ridiculous. Nearly 50K wasted on nothing more than admin and procedural legal nonsense. When the judge and barrister, who clearly knew each other, tried their best to make me feel like a second class citizen for not being represented it was everything I could do to keep my mouth shut. I settled that day because it felt like a cesspit of lies and deceit and the reality was I could have fought back at a final hearing but my ex-wife would have as well and that would result in probably another 30K of wasted money.

My advice would be that you either need to go 'one way' or the other, find good solicitors and barristers and fight all the way, or make it your focus to settle quickly and efficiently. The long it goes on the more it costs regardless and whilst there may be fairer and more reasonable judges than I had, it's all a risk and the concept or justice and fairness is certainly not guaranteed