AIBU to warn against unwise MN advice that could harm you in divorce cases?

[Seven7s]

I’m posting on AIBU because this is where the most recent wild suggestions were made. Please ladies be careful at some of the suggestions made here. I’ve seen some posters giving advice on another thread. Let’s not egg people on to destroy their own standing. I spend time working with women rebuilding themselves and have assisted/ am assisting several who are in the midst of their divorces as litigants in person. I’ve been to court some 30odd times in the last year. Many women don’t qualify for legal aid because they co-own their home but have no cash and can’t afford lawyers having been homemakers. And the first thing the man does is cut them off financially making it more difficult for them to even seek advice on how to obtain litigation loans or apply for LSPO. (Legal services payment order)
Here’s what I can tell you for free. The men’s lawyers typically find it easy to establish a case of irrationality against the women because of things they did whilst upset which no one had told them would damage their case. Pulling some examples from a recent trending thread let me show you some of these:

• Changing the locks to exclude a badly behaved spouse /Locking a co-owner out of their home = Unlawful eviction / interference with right to occupy. Whilst this is frequently done in movies and around the country, it is the quickest way to show the judge you are controlling. (Caveat unless the man is a physical danger to you and/or the children but even in that case, lack of any police records of you having called the police in the past means the man can dismiss it. That’s why the first time anyone hits or threatens to hit you, or behaves aggressively or spits at you; call the police, this creates an external record which will be invaluable. If your spouse is causing you stress and anxiety (3+ bad nights of sleep, tell your GP, also creates a record. Your GP wont judge, they’ve seen it all)
• Filming your drink hubby when he’s passed out/ incapacitated in a private home without consent = Misuse of private information / breach of privacy (the courts take a very dim view and won’t even allow whatever evidence you think this is)
• Filming him beside vomit for evidence and using footage = Controlling or coercive behaviour (Serious Crime Act 2015) [funny enough the law is different if you have indoor cctv and it catches this- the latter is incidental, the former is intentional]
• Seizing or withholding someone’s passport = Theft / controlling or coercive behaviour
• Defacing or destroying someone’s passport or ticket = Criminal damage / theft
• Going through your spouse’s stuff to find tickets or other such documents = breach of privacy, you can no longer introduce documents into legal proceedings if they are documents you found which your spouse had hidden. The court expects that if they were hidden, he has a reasonable right to expect privacy. Even if said documents show he has millions of £ stashed away.
• I could go on.

Whilst these can feel good at the time to do, will have huge consequences in a divorce. Please do not do anything like this. If contemplating a divorce your best course of action is to be whiter than white, if you feel you might need video evidence, install indoor CCTV in your home and pay for 6 month footage back up plan and download as soon as anything happens. Ring is better, Tapo is okay too but some models are not great. Believe me the difference matters it in court; Document everything and take protective steps before you file anything. I am not saying people should go round filing for divorces but it’s deeply frustrating to see what rings are run round a woman who has been a trusting wife and mother because they are not legal savvy and don’t have representation. As above maybe the same happens to men too so I don’t want to generalise. I’m only speaking from the experiences I know.

I’m not posting this to attract comments. Just a psa from a woman to women/ or anyone who is genuinely not an abuser and is enduring a bad marriage and considering doing any of the above. Don’t.

It’s not just that, it’s like where do they expect the locked out person to live?!? Lock them out of their home and they what, live under a bridge? Find £100 a night for a hotel? It’s such a childish thing to do

I see advice to change the locks and go through financial papers a lot.

Is that with the money she's been cut off from and is not allowed to look for?

Talk about a man's world..

Earn your own money and don't have a joint bank account, ever imo.

Not if the drawer is unlocked. If it’s a usually unlocked drawer in shared space, even if only used by him, there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy. If it’s a locked drawer that he left unlocked once or drawer in a room he typically keeps locked but forgot the court fully would tell you he had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Location matters.

If however she/he left it lying around by accident and you saw it and made copies, that is fine. That’s incidental. If that happens take photos of the documents where it was found. If you find documents in a pocket of a suit you are dropping off at dry cleaning or laundry, same, incidental. But if you never do the laundry or dry cleaning, that would be seen as snooping and that he would not have expected you to find it/ had privacy expectations.

Believe me, if he’s hiding millions your professional services will be happy to wait for the settlement to be paid.

No her first aim should be to apply for an LSPO aka a fighting fund. Most litigants in persons don’t know to do this. By the time they learn, it’s far gone. I’ve picked these things up from court appearances myself. It’s not stuff the general public knows to do.
Also most women I’ve encountered feel hurt by the proceedings and the lawyers always seek to attack their parenting in other to bait them into a reaction in court. It’s brutal to witness. Then the women spend weeks after reeling from the attacks and mean things said in court about them instead of strategising.

OP, just a courtesy heads-up, I’ve reported this as a thread about a thread, which is against Mumsnet rules.

If you’ve got criticisms of what people have said, raise them on the original thread. Sneaking off to start a separate one comes across as a bit underhand, and it denies people the chance to respond directly.

I also believe that the advice you are giving is not up to date and you use quite out dated terms. Are you are practicing lawyer? I think you are actually giving incorrect advice which could harms mumsnetters in a divorce case

I’ve just read one of your others threads and realised you are not a legally qualified person at all!

The OP is referring to “Imerman documents”. As a wife or partner you can produce whatever evidence you find of any documents in the home you share with your partner. You happened to chance upon them if you know what I mean. But if it’s their private documents instead of joint then it becomes tricky.

You are not allowed to sneak into his office or home to “steal” or otherwise “illegally” obtain documents (ie ask your kids or friends to take something from their father’s/friends’ home).

Key Aspects of the Imerman Rule:

• Breach of Confidence: Accessing, copying, or sharing a spouse's private financial information without permission is a breach of confidence and potentially a crime or tort.
• Return of Documents: Illegally obtained documents must be returned, often forcing the solicitor to destroy copies in their possession.
• Evidence Exclusion: The Court of Appeal ruled that such evidence is generally inadmissible, ending the previous practice (Hildebrand rules) that permitted using "grabbed" evidence.
• Exceptions: While the documents must be returned, the spouse who obtained them may still rely on their own memory of what they read.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

@Blimms you seem oddly upset by a thread. 30 attendances in courts at almost all levels in the UK in the last year (except court of appeal and Supreme Court), tells me that if you’re correct I ought to let these judges and lawyers know they are using outdated advice.
I honestly don’t care if the thread gets taken down. If it’s caused even one person to reconsider changing locks, sneaking out hidden documents or even pouring bleach on eyes (again a suggestion actually made), then it’s been worth it. There is not enough of a women’s club or women trying to help each other, they are too busy taking down each others posts on MN. Whilst the old clubs/men’s world / manosphere appear to be supporting each other in courts. Thanks for the courtesy notice though.

edit to add: and no, never said I was a lawyer, I’m a Mackenzie friend. I don’t need to be a lawyer for that. Look it up, it’s a real role.

courtesy notice: I’ll be engaging with those who genuinely appear to be asking questions and disengaging from inflammatory threads. Anything I say can and should be independently verified which I can see some people are doing.

So much wrong advice given out on MN!

i haven’t read the thread in question and I’m not a legal expert but I do see absolutely terrible advice on here all the time.

People post on AIBU for advice and have no idea of the knowledge/competence/agenda of the person posting.

It’s not just legal stuff, there was a thread fairly recently where people were telling a woman she didn’t need A&E and she was dangerously unwell.

IMO it doesn’t meet the definition of a TAAT, because although it may have come about because of a particular thread the OP has read, it’s advice which is often given as standard when people talk about divorce.

Wanting it removed essentially means you think that giving crap advice such as “change the locks” is perfectly valid and women shouldn’t be given decent advice or advised against doing things which should harm them. Which would make me wonder exactly what your motivation is here.

Absolutely @KimuraTan you’re right. But the scope has in my direct experience been successfully applied even within the home to include things normally locked and used by one person. It was successfully used to argue that it should be applied to a normally locked drawer in the shared home successfully by H’s lawyer. The wife did find material that suggested sizeable assets and the judge refused to view it or admit it.

Edit ps: sorry just seen you already clarified that if it’s their private (not joint) documents it’s tricky.

That was arguably true until the OP posted the thread above

I’m happy to go back and remove the thread. I’m not precious about my posts. My intention has always been to warn women not to react emotionally in ways that can be used against them. There are genuine questions on that have told me it was worth posting because people really didn’t know. And hopefully will now be looking it up themselves too. So the thread has served/is serving its purpose.

id keep the thread, if people know the advice can be a mix either way then we need more threads like this,

My motivation is that I am worried vulnerable women on MN will read the threads by someone who is attempting to place themselves in a position of authority without being transparent about their backgrounds. OP should have been clear that she is not a legally qualified person in her OP.

I know how difficult courts are. I have been through criminal proceedings because of the multiple rapes and physical abuse I experienced at the hands of my ex. I’ve also then had to face him multiple times in the family courts.

So my motivation will always be to safeguard and protect women who are going though really awful times. It also means I know first hand that what the OP is saying is not always the case. It does not matter how often she (he?) has sat in court, she is not legally qualified to give legal advice.

If this thread is removed then I would suggest starting another one without alluding to the thread which inspired it.

This isn’t IMO a thread about a thread, it has been inspired by one which is entirely different, because that thread, although I haven’t read it, is by no means the first where truly crap advice is given.

In fact I think that we should add to the kinds of advice which is almost routinely given when women are looking to file for divorce. Such as:

• you have the right to stay in the house until the children turn 18.
• tell him he won’t be seeing his children.
• tell the children what he’s done.
• even if you can’t change the locks you can barricade the doors from the inside to prevent him from coming in.
• pack his bags and leave them on the lawn.

And the list goes on.

so why not counter the advice on every thread that you know for sure eg you studyed legal textbooks or you talk to lawers or even i dont know have actual court experience ?

i had to edit, your last comment in that case no one should be offering advice on here unles they are legal experts yourself included because if your not a legal expert then how can you judge the ops advice as correct or not ?

@Seven7s just out of curiosity what does happen in those cases where the wife finds hidden evidence of millions stashed away or a any large sum of money stashed away?
Surely the husband is in contempt of court or whatever for hiding assets?

im guessing fruit of the poisonous tree defence ?

I wasn’t going to respond to more posts but what you just shared is awful. I’m very sorry to hear of your experience @Blimms. And I did address this scenario, did you read the caveat in my first post? It directly applies to exactly what you just disclosed that you experienced. I stated “caveat… ”
But no I don’t need to say I’m not a lawyer outright if I begin by saying I have supported women rebuilding themselves and have assisted and I am assisting some. Literally the truth. Legal advice would be me telling someone what they have to do in their particular case. Telling people what has backfired in other peoples cases and what has been said to others is not classified legal advice.

That said, this level of attack/nit picking or having to justify one’s own self when trying to help others is why some people don’t bother and women end up in these situations. Were we a bunch of men, chances are the response would be “cheers for sharing” or similar as the reader then goes off to verify for themselves and avoids a costly error. We women sometimes distract ourselves with infighting.

All that said I am genuinely sorry for what you have been through. No one deserves that, I mean it.

I appreciate what you’re trying to do here OP.
I can’t believe you’re getting a hard time.
Thank you

@TracyBeakerSoYeah @CharleneElizabethBaltimore depends what stage they are at. If before the Final hearing, and enough time for forensic accountant, that’s the time to. There’s a lady currently engaging one now and has sought to postpone final hearing on this basis. she is also applying for a freezing order and section 37 which can reverse any attempts to shed/hide assets since the divorce proceedings began. The forensic accountant has off the record told her that even if the judge doesn’t grant her the postponement, if they manage to verify what she has found, she’d likely have enough evidence to apply for a set aside of any orders on the basis that fraud or deliberate concealment vitiates/invalidates any orders. Also yes they would be contempt of court because the Form
E they signed requires full disclosure and (if I recall correctly usually carries) a signed statement of truth. A statement of truth is literally an admission that you accept you’ll be found in contempt of court if you’ve lied.