Topic: FAMILY LAW

Case analysis- children and separation

Jamie and Sophie separated two years ago and agreed at the time their three children Jasper, Harry and Polo. Then aged three, six and eight, should continue to live with Sophie during the week. And Jamie would have the children at his flat every weekend. No orders were made in relation to the children on separation. Until six months ago, Jamie had seen the children regularly. Often having them for weekends and for part of the school holidays. For the past ten weeks Sophie has cancelled contact arrangements (at the last minute). And will not allow Jamie to speak to the children on the phone, facetime or WhatsApp. And has not given the children the birthday cards and presents that Jamie has sent them.

For the past seven months Jamie has been seeing Myles, a wealthy businessman. Jamie and Myles have been living together for the past three months. And would now like to get married as soon as possible. However, Jamie and Sophie are still married. Sophie refuses to discuss the children with Jamie, who fears that he is being excluded as a Father because of his relationship with Myles. Sophie did not tell Jamie about Harry’s parents evening last week and attended alone. Jamie has also discovered that the school has changed the children’s surname to that of Sophie’s maiden name. When Jamie confronted Sophie about this Sophie’s response was that he is not the biological parent anyway as all three children were conceived using donated sperm.

Further analysis

In retaliation Jamie has then refused to pay the children’s private school fees which amounts to £3,000 per pupil per annum. A few weeks ago, again at the very last minute, Sophie cancelled a long-standing arrangement for the children to spend the weekend at Jamie’s parents’ house. This is after seeing a Facebook post that Jamie and Myles were also spending the weekend there. Jasper has told Jamie that his mother is taking them to America in the summer with the £10,000 inheritance she has come into. This means that Jamie will not see his children over the summer holidays. It has become apparent that Sophie disapproves of Jamie’s relationship with Myles. Sophie says the reasons for her dislike towards Myles is because she has heard from a mutual friend that Myles is controlling and abusive towards Jamie when he has had a drink.

ASSESSMENT BRIEF

• You will be split into two groups for this assessment. • Team A will consist of one student and will represent Sophie. • Team B will consist of one student and will represent Jamie. • You should review the above information as well as the supporting documents in your pack and consider the legal issues arising. • The time allotted to the exercise is 30 minutes, which allows 10 minutes for Team A to make their case and then 10 minutes for Team B to make their submissions. At the end of the submissions the tutors will set aside 10 minutes for both sides to reach an agreement, for questions to be taken and marks allocated.

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