D Day Dodgers

I wasn't born until well after D Day but I'm old enough to remember stories of people who were. This parody was attributed to Major Hamish Henderson of the 51st Highland Division, written after Lady Astor referred to the men of the 8th Army who were fighting in the Italian campaign as the "D-Day Dodgers". She apparently forgot that they had fought their way from Alexandria, Egypt, through Libya to Tunisia, to Sicily and then up the boot of Italy to a summer retreat called Monte Cassino without any relief.

Captain Henderson personally accepted the surrender of Italy from Marshal Graziani in 1945, the first major surrender of an Axis army in the West. On the 65th anniversary of D Day let us not only commemorate the Normandy Landings but also remember the efforts the D Day Dodgers and all those others who contributed to the defeat of fascism.

See more about Hamish in this earlier post.

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Scottish Divorce History

The records of the Registrar General for Scotland, held in the National Archives of Scotland, are a source of information on the social history of Scotland, since they deal with everyday life and personal relationships. Scottish Way of Birth and Death is a project at the University of Glasgow's Department of Economic and Social History reviewing a history of civil registration in Scotland from its beginning in 1855 until World War II.

During first 10 years of registration (1855 and 1864) the average number of divorces in Scotland each year was 17. By 1905-14, the figure had increased to an average of 222 per year and an average of 458 divorces per year in 1915-24 were registered, however the numbers were so low they were not included in the General Register Office annual reports until 1920. In 1942 the figure was over 1000 for the first time.

In the 1890s, it was reputed a Scottish divorce could cost as little as £12 and very poor people could claim financial help from the Poor Law authorities if they had a good case against their spouses. The law gave equal rights to both sexes, although in practice most divorce cases were brought by women, except during and after the World Wars.

A law of 1600 barred anyone divorced on grounds of adultery from marrying the third person named in the divorce action. A child born to an adulterous couple would be illegitimate in Scotland, even if they had gone through a form of marriage after the divorce. Apparently even in the later nineteenth century jurisdiction was a problem and English courts refused to recognize the dissolution of marriages made in England but ending in Scotland, unless the couple could prove that they were genuinely living in Scotland.

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Online Divorce Sites and Chat Rooms

When we divorced it never crossed my mind to use the internet and it was a few years later when I was looking for a specific piece of information I first stumbled across a divorce online forum. Initially I couldn't make much sense of what people said but through reading others experiences and checking the facts I became little more educated and begun to understand how the systems in England & Wales and Scotland worked. I must confess though, chat rooms are not for me and only once did I inadvertently enter one and made a quick exit. Today the women's section of The Times carries an article about the development and success of Wikivorce which draws on Wikipedia, in that it is up to members to add an interesting resources to the site whenever they find one.

Like tens of thousands of men and women facing divorce, Jane was at her wits’ end when she turned to the internet. There she found wikivorce.com, an online support group for couples facing the end of their marriage. The website, which was launched two years ago and boasts a new visitor every minute, is an online community that offers free access to information, support and advice for people going through divorce or separation.

While online chats about divorce and marriage troubles are multiplying on sites such as mumsnet and ivillage, specialist sites such as ondivorce.co.uk and divorce-online.co.uk, which claims 31,000 members, appear to be proof that divorcing couples are increasingly seeking friendship and advice anonymously and online through chat rooms and the blogosphere. But will these burgeoning internet divorce chat rooms mean an end to acrimonious courtroom battles and the need for professional relationship counsellors?.....

I'm not sure why the article is in the women's section, there are many men who use the site too. In fact I believe at one stage there were more male members than female ones. Ian Rispin, founder of Wikivorce, judged that family law needed an extensive makeover and aims to provide support to people who have no choice other than self represent. Wikivorce has recently launched in Scotland and Australia. However, The Times echos my thoughts about the pitfalls;

Nick Longford, the chairman of Resolution, the organisation that represents 5,700 family lawyers, welcomes the online support groups but warns people to think carefully before attempting to save legal fees and going it alone with the help of a website. Legally, divorce can be very complicated, he says, and although lawyers can cost anything from £150 to £400 an hour, you pay for their experience and emotional support in navigating the treacherous divorce waters. If you go to court, costs can double. If the case reaches a final hearing, they can treble.

“I would hate people to think that this is a panacea and make themselves vulnerable,” he says. “As for selfrepresenting, there is an awful lot of law involved. We need a number of methods so that people can make an informed choice, but it’s not easy and it can be a full-time job.”

Of course, he would say that — as he admits — but he points out that while costs can spiral in court, most of Resolution’s clients manage to sort out their differences through lawyers and do not end up in front of a judge.

Christine Northam, a counsellor with Relate — which is in talks about working alongside Wikivorce and endorsing it as a tool for support in divorce — agrees that chat rooms have their place but insists that they are no substitute for professional advice.

“These sites may help by giving you good emotional support — but they may also mean that you stay stuck in a rut and carry on thinking that all men are bastards, and so on,” she says. “Counselling is about facing what has gone wrong and letting go. By knowing yourself a bit more, you should avoid making the same mistakes again — if you haven’t had counselling you can get sucked into repeating those mistakes.”

Northam also warns users to be aware of the risks attached to using divorce sites. No advice comes without an agenda, she says, be it from your mother, a friend or a newfound wiki mate, so users should consider thoughtfully where the advice they are given is coming from before acting on it.

Full article Source The Times 4 June 2009

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A Child's Wishes

In the recent English Court of Appeal case R (A Child) [2009] EWCA Civ 445 a mother appealed against a residence order in favour of the father. A brief history of the case was the parents had separated in 2001 after a relationship of about three years when the child was nearly two. The father had remarried and the child lived with the mother. In 2008 the mother was suffering from drink problem brought on by the suicide of a good friend and approached the father for help as she felt she could not cope. It was agreed that the son should live with the father given the mother’s problems. Shortly after wards the father applied for residence which was granted despite a CAFCASS report recommending that the child should live with the mother.

The mother appealed on the basis that the judge i) had lost impartiality in questioning the mother; ii) erred in his treatment of the child’s wishes and iii) had been wrong to reject the CAFCASS recommendation. All three judges agreed point i) that the judge had not put any pressure on the mother with his questioning.

There was dissent between the judges on point ii) and iii). Wall LJ said "He [the judge] was in my judgment correct to treat the wishes as but one of the several checklist factors to which he had to have regard and he properly went through the checklist. " He went on to say the CAFCASS officers recommendation “on balance, I think L should return to live with his mother” was not strong and the "judge was well able to conduct his own evaluation of the relevant consideration."

This was countered by Rix LJ:

"in my judgment, he [the judge] has erred in more than the balancing of the weight of various check-list factors. He has erred essentially, in setting on one side the firm evidence of the child’s own wishes, and in rejecting the CAFCASS reporter’s own clear recommendation, in favour of a return to residence with the mother, together with the reasons given for both. He has not done so because of any new evidence or of a reasoned challenge to the opinion of Dr Cochrane [CAFCASS officer]. He has simply critically discounted the child’s wishes, and essentially ignored Dr Cochrane’s recommendations and conclusions, and has done so without hearing either. The CAFCASS reporter is, to a very great extent, the eyes and ears of the court, especially where the child is concerned, but the judge has not “listened” to the child, and he has ignored the reporter."

Moore-Bick LJ agreed with Rix LJ that there should be hearing before a different judge and that another CAFCASS officer should be asked to prepare a fresh report for that purpose.

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Should Legal Services Disciplinary Findings Be Published?

I missed the English Court of Appeal ruling last month refusing to grant an injunction to stop Private Eye from publishing details of a complaint against a former President of the Law Society, Michael Napier. According to The Times the ruling also clears the way for thousands of other cases each year against solicitors and barristers to be publicised, as well as findings by the legal ombudsmen who act as a last “court” of appeal.

One lawyer told The Times “This will be a free-for-all for complainants. Anyone aggrieved with his or her lawyer will be able to publicise details, whether the complaint was upheld or not — and the public will think there's no smoke without fire.”

I have some sympathy with this view but surely being open and making disciplinary rulings public when a complaint is upheld would be preferable and more balanced than the public relying on media stories?

Findings of the Scottish Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal are available online.

Article Source The Times 21 May 2009

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