Order may focus father’s mind on issues of child’s welfare, judge rules
The father of a toddler who “prevented” his dispute from being mediated by making a “false assertion” that the child was at imminent risk of being removed from the jurisdiction by the mother must pay most of her costs, a circuit judge has ruled.
Deciding that the father’s conduct justified an exception to the general no-costs rule in family matters, Her Honour Judge Nott, sitting at Reading Family Court, described his litigation strategy as “first to blindside and then to attack”.
The father’s urgent application to the court prevented a mediation information and assessment meeting (MIAM) from being held and instead resulted in “an urgent hearing with the consequent enhanced litigation costs to the mother”.
Mediation “would have pointed out the weakness of the father’s position, and helped him come up with constructive proposals”.
The court heard in A Mother v a Father (Internal relocation and costs) [2025] EWFC 274 (B) that Q’s parents married in March 2022 and separated in December 2024. Their son was approaching his second birthday.
HHJ Nott ruled that Q’s interests would best be met by permitting his mother to relocate with him from Buckinghamshire to Northumberland when circumstances allowed.
On costs, the father agreed that he should be liable for the mother’s costs of the urgent hearing in April 2025, but he should not have to contribute to the mother’s litigation costs thereafter, “since the issue of relocation is a binary one unlikely to have been resolved other than by the court”.
His “principled opposition to relocation was not unreasonable and deserved to be heard” and he was “entitled to test the mother’s case”, he asserted.
The mother accepted that a costs order in family proceedings was “unusual”, and that there was a “real chance” the dispute would have ended up in a final hearing. However, “by issuing in the manner in which he did, the father effectively brought a guillotine down on mediation”.
HHJ Nott said that under FPR 28(6), the court could make an order requiring one party to pay the costs of another party where it was appropriate “because of the conduct of a party in relation to the proceedings”.
Having regard to the factors set out in rule 28(7), the father “failed to attend a MIAM and dishonestly claimed the urgency exception on a fallacious assertion that the child was at imminent risk of removal from the jurisdiction”.
He failed to comply with a court order by failing to file “any reasonable or cogent plans” for the child under the competing positions.
He “unreasonably focused on attacking and maligning the mother’s conduct and motivation”, suggesting in his evidence that she was “controlling, contact-resistant and likely to fail to abide court orders in the event of her application succeeding”.
HHJ Nott said the “major reason” costs were only exceptionally ordered in family proceedings was that the court’s concern was to discover what would be best for the child. “People who have a reasonable case to put forward as to what will be in the best interests of the child should not be deterred from doing so by the threat of a costs order against them if they are unsuccessful.
“The exception to this is where there has been unreasonable litigation conduct. One must not confuse unreasonableness in relation to the child – because one might say that we are all expected to be unreasonable in our attitudes to our children – and unreasonableness in the attitude to the litigation.
“While I accept that the father had a reasonable and principled objection to relocation, my findings make it plain that he did not commence or conduct his litigation in a reasonable or principled manner. This is perhaps a paradigm case as to the difference between unreasonableness in relation to the child, which does not pertain here, and unreasonableness in the attitude to the litigation, which does.”
A costs order would also “likely focus” the father’s mind on the relevant welfare issues moving forward and “ameliorate for the mother some of the financial strain and the sense of unfairness she will feel at having been put through these proceedings in the manner in which she has”.
The father was ordered to pay the full costs of the urgent hearing in April 2025, summarily assessed as £6,768 plus VAT, plus half the mother’s costs in the final hearing, summarily assessed at £23,275 plus VAT, making a total of just over £30,000 plus VAT.
Rhiannon Lloyd appeared for the mother. Indira Ramsahoye appeared for the father.