The Case Of The 180 Irregular Divorces

One would imagine the title to be straight out of a Sherlock Holmes story, but this is not a piece of fiction. As anyone who has been involved in court proceedings issued since October 2014 will be aware, divorces are no longer commenced in the Sheffield Court but in Doncaster. In fact all divorces taking place in the South Yorkshire and Humberside area are now all issued out of Doncaster Family Court. The change came about because of the "180 Irregular Divorces". The English divorce system is relatively straight forward and fast compared to most European countries. If one party is resident / domiciled in England or Wales then the divorce can take place in this country and so it transpired that divorcing couples who were not resident or domiciled in this country tried to take advantage of the system. 180 divorces were of Italian persons. The divorces were issued out of over 130 different courts across England and Wales (thus spreading the risk of detection). The plot however unravelled when it was discovered that in all bar one of the 180 divorces, one of the divorcing parties had given exactly the same address in Maidenhead as being their "habitual residence" and so claimed jurisdiction of the English Courts. When the fraud came to light, the divorce petitions were dismissed and the Court decided that the number of divorce courts would be reduced to only nine "divorce centres" to try and prevent this kind of fraud happening in the future and so each geographical area was given its own "single point of entry" Hello Doncaster! Whilst one cannot but be somewhat cynical that the changes may have also been a cost cutting exercise, should you ever have to journey the M18 to Doncaster for a divorce hearing, remember, you are doing so because of the 180 "Irregular Divorces". For advice about any aspect on Divorce or Separation, please contact Lindsey Canning on 0114 266 6660 or [email protected].