If you are coming out of an abusive marriage and going through divorce, you may well be reflecting on your spouse’s past behaviour, and how this has impacted on you and your children. Having suffered domestic abuse in the marriage, you may well be keen to now raise this, and to let the court know what you have been through when the court comes to consider the financial settlement.  

Whilst it’s completely understandable if you feel that way, it’s important to know from the outset that however bad your spouse’s behaviour may have been, it is unlikely to have any impact on the financial settlement you will receive in the divorce.

This often comes as a surprise to people, and seems hard to understand. Surely the courts are there to punish wrong doing, and this is the chance to get redress?

Only up to a point. In serious cases of abuse, then yes, there may be grounds for a prosecution in the criminal courts. Or if the abuse is continuing and you or your children are at risk of future harm, then the Family Court can put protective injunctions and orders in place.

But when the Family Court comes to consider how the family home, savings and pensions are shared between you and your spouse, any historic domestic abuse is usually set to one side.

“Exceptional” cases only

The abuse would have to be “exceptional” to impact on the financial settlement and the court sets a very high bar.  There are just a few recorded cases where the domestic abuse has reached that bar and has been taken into account to increase the financial settlement in favour of the victim. To give you an idea, some of these cases include:

• Where a Husband physically attacked his Wife resulting in permanent injury affecting her long term ability to work
• A Wife took out contract killers to murder her Husband
• A Husband was imprisoned for rape and violent assault of his Wife, and the imprisonment affected his ability to work and provide for her and the children
• A Wife assisted her Husband in suicide attempts so she could benefit from the inheritance and set up home with another man.

What about “coercive control”

As well as domestic abuse cases concerning physical violence, more recently there has been a focus in the Family Court, as in society generally, on more subtle types of domestic abuse. For example –  psychological abuse, financial abuse, “gas lighting” and coercive control.

Will this type of domestic abuse be treated any differently, when the Family Court comes to consider the financial settlement? The recently reported case of “A v R” reported in August this year indicates that as with physical abuse, coercive control is very unlikely to affect the financial settlement and the bar remains extremely high.

In  “A v R” the Wife alleged a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour by the Husband.  She said that this had damaged her mental health and contributed to her taking early retirement from her career in the NHS. That behaviour, she said, had included the following:

• He undermined and belittled her career
• He used cameras to spy on her and went through her phone
• He tried to manipulate the children against her
• He withdrew her pension lump sum from their joint account and sold her investments without her knowledge.

Although this type of behaviour would be obviously abusive and indefensible, the Family Court still found that the abuse in itself would not impact on the financial settlement. The Husband would not be “punished” for this behaviour in the financial case. Instead, the focus of the court remained on looking at sharing the assets so as to meet the financial needs of the Husband and Wife moving forward.

It is a complex area of the law and in any divorce it is important to obtain specialist advice at an early stage so you know how the Family Court will approach the financial settlement. Please contact team at Wollens and we will be pleased to assist.

(As noted above, if you have suffered abuse within the marriage, this may be relevant to the arrangements for any children.  There are also protective orders that can be put in place if you are still at risk.  We can assist with these issues – please do get in touch.)

You can also complete an online enquiry form. One of the Wollens team will contact you as soon as they are available.