Sacha Lee, London, England UK
My work as an attorney involves legal matters pertaining to children, including arrangements for children after their parent’s separation, international relocation and international adoption. Recently, a colleague and I, successfully concluded a challenging relocation case which embodied the true spirit of collaboration between the family law court and supporting systems to promote the well-being of a child.
Our client, the mother, suffered domestic abuse from the father, including an incident when the father strangled the mother in front of the child. The mother and child did not have immigration status to remain in England long term, nor did she have access to any government support. The father was not paying child maintenance and the mother was unable to secure work due to her need for childcare. The mother and child were temporarily housed in a hotel paid for by the Local Authority, renewed every week. Given these circumstances, the mother sought to relocate with the child to her home in Australia.
In this matter all of the limbs of the family court system worked seamlessly together. The Local Authority Social Workers proactively engaged to assist the family by liaising with multi-disciplinary agencies to provide interim solutions to stabilise the situation while the court proceedings were ongoing.
The court was pragmatic at each hearing, giving very careful consideration of the whole family’s circumstances when making orders, to make the process as expedient and efficient as possible. The court squarely placed the child’s well-being at the forefront. A Guardian was appointed to represent the child’s best interests in the proceedings. The court ensured transparency of the process and sought to have all the independent evidence, as well as evidence from the parents, before it in order to make a considered and informed decision.
As a consequence of these collaborative efforts, the work that was prepared was detailed, thorough and involved considerable multi-agency cooperation. The result was that the entire process, from start to finish concluded comparatively quickly by agreement of the parents rather than a court imposed order.
