Blog Round Up 4

There are only a handful of Scottish blawgs and I still haven't come across a family law one (Jonathan Mitchell QC does the occasional excellent post about family law) which I think is a great shame because blogging is a great way of engaging with the public and correcting any misconceptions. To spur lawyers on there is Charon QC's post The Bar Urged To Use The Internet Thingy to Market Themselves..... Shock Horror


Lucy Reed of Pink Tape makes valid points about the disadvantages of using an online divorce service here. Firstly, the fastest ‘UK’s best selling managed divorce service’ is causing a logjam and therefore the court local to them is perhaps no longer the 'UK's fastest divorce court.' Secondly, someone who is someway down the separation route might discover they need to travel a great distance to resolve a dispute about children at the court local to the online divorce service where the divorce petition is pending.


John Bolch of Family Lore asks is Tagging:A Good Thing? after the case of Re A Minor (Family Proceedings: Electronic Tagging) [2009] EWHC 710 (Fam), when the mother, who had twice wrongfully removed the child from the jurisdiction, agreed to be electronically tagged whilst the child was with her.


Marilyn Stowe's post about a mother denied all access to her children by the court provoked some interesting reaction. According to The Times the woman was judged to be too indulgent a parent an banned from seeing her children for three years. Marilyn raised concerns about whether the court should have taken such action and John Bolch played the Devil's Advocate asking how is the court to deal with a parent causing children to suffer serious emotional harm? Of particular interest are the informed, objective comments on Marilyn's blog from those professionals involved with intervening in difficult contact cases advocating a 'whole host of interventions that might be attempted before drastic measures are taken.'

Rarely in my experience do these cases boil down just to the behaviour of one parent. We really need to more in terms of providing education and support to families going through break down at an early stage to give people coping strategies and prevent as many of these cases as possible in the first place.


Judith Middleton of Judith's Divorce Blog has an excellent topical story about listing income needs.