Abuse within the legal system. Any support?

[Chillionice]

Huge advice & support from a post I made on here 2 years ago was fundamental to giving me the strength to recognise and end a 15 year relationship and 11 year marriage to the father of my 3 children. I strongly suspect he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Despite taking every bit of help I can access - private counselling, domestic violence involvement, my own solicitor, huge pastoral support for the children via CAMHS and their school, the legal system is pitted against mothers in my position.
I am stuck on a decree nisi. I am running out of money to fund the financial agreement process. The children (12, 13, 15) live with me and chose to stop their already negligible overnight visits to their father several months ago due to emotionally damaging behaviour on his part. Form E’s have been completed twice by myself but my husband has failed to complete a full version himself. Capital needs have been submitted as monthly costs, bank statements and payslips not supplied. He left his first solicitor, then spent £15k on a barrister. Bullying and aggression is evidenced in almost all of the correspondence I receive from his solicitor.
Offers have been submitted and a FDR hearing is set in 6 weeks time.
I can scrape together enough to get through the FDR but his conduct to date suggests it is likely his revised Form E will be incomplete once again and that he will drag this out to render me financially unable to continue.
I am horrified at the lack of support available to individuals in this situation. It seems to go against everything the legal system ought to represent. It makes an arena where financial abuse can actually be nurtured rather than stamped out.
Are there any resources available to me at this point?
Also, I would like to add my voice to any organisations or campaigns working for reform of the legal system. Are there any?
Whilst coercive control became an offence post 2015 the divorce process, family courts and legal system seem to foster and even provide an environment in which it is encouraged to run rife.

I’ve had a response from Solicitors Regulatory Authority. I’ve been allocated an investigation officer! Delighted. She says she may not investigate nor take action but has ‘raised queries with the firm regarding this matter’. I’ll keep you posted!!

Well done. A little progress. Hope your efforts inspire others. 👏👏

Thanks for the update. That’s great news. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

I wouldn't get too excited about this update from the SRA I'm afraid. Every case will be assigned to a case officer to consider and 2-3 weeks from the initial complaint is about the right timeframe for this.

Having read the thread I don't think your husband's solicitor has a case to answer based on the facts disclosed here. These are unlikely to fall within the criteria of financial abuse either (financial abuse would include things like denying you the right to work or denying you the right to have your own bank account for example. It would not normally include not providing his income to you to live on - if that was necessary, a court would order it as maintenance pending suit and enforce it).

What this looks like to me are hard nosed tactics. It might not reflect well on your husband in a final hearing but the solicitor is not doing anything illegal or against the SRA's code of ethics.

Sorry, I should have added. If the husband's solicitor had a case to answer, the OP's solicitor would almost certainly have raised this already.

Wow, I could have and have written a similar post. Absolutely shocking state of affairs for women in 2023.

Signed the letter. Most so called regulatory authorities are pathetic, so I wouldnt get your hopes up.

@Chillionice Not sure if anyone - especially the OP - is around but if you are I’d really love to know where you got to with your complaint. My divorce has been very similar to yours (with the added horror of arrangements for children hearings), my ex husband / his solicitor have told lie after lie (and included many lies in sworn documents / based his financial case - such as it is - on a lie directly contradicted by documents submitted to the children’s proceedings). I intend to complain - about their failure to fact check if nothing else - but wonder also what’s the point, no one seems to care and certainly not the court. If you’re willing to update, it would be really good to know how it panned out.

👋 still here and delighted you stumbled across my post! The SRA sent my complaint to my ex’s firm of solicitors for ‘investigation’. I got a horrible, patronising response from SRA saying that my ex’s solicitors under ‘client privilege’ I think was the phrase, were under no compulsion to answer the allegation of withholding settlement payment despite evidence (documentation they issued setting a date for payment they failed to meet). It went on to tell me divorce is challenging and they hoped I could move on.
I sent this onto someone quite senior in Women’s Aid who was pretty horrified but said all they could do was advise the SRA to implement training to deal with people who has suffered trauma.
All very misogynistic, patronising and left me more than suspicious that the coercive control bill is only ever applied in the most extreme of cases and of no use. I’ve still got all paperwork somewhere if you want it. Tell me a way to PM you somehow.

This whole experience has shown me that the family court was established by white upper
middle class men to serve the needs of white upper middle class men. I am aghast at the lack of safeguards for parents with care, the ease with which the system can be manipulated and the manner by which solicitors profit from it all. Makes me want to start a revolution.

ive no idea how dms work here - I’ll see if I can find out - and thank you for responding, sadly I was expecting that you would have experienced something like that. I’m sorry it wasn’t a better outcome. I’m going to throw everything I’ve got at it - but, see above…

I found the SRA letter utterly astonishing and, like you, wanted to bring this into the public arena somehow. I said to Women’s Aid I’d share my story and documents anywhere that may help others. I’ve received your PM. I’ll dig my letters out, scan at work over next few days & we can share via email addresses if PM allows if you like.
2 words of warning tho. The SRA letter further crushed me at a time I was worn down. You need to keep your energy directed as you are - on yourself & children - as you are likely to yield little from SRA. I ended up with a rare cancer diagnosis 8 months after court appearance & SRA. I’m sure the stress you too are feeling was a huge contributor.
The phrase ‘gaslighting’ is overused these days but to be gaslit in a relationship then by the legal system is that incredulous, I believe the effect on me was as physically profound as to make my actual cells begin to revolt!
Sounds nuts but I’m really not I can assure you! More positively, I’m really happy now. I unexpectedly met a lovely man in the midst of all this & the cruelty I encountered in marriage and the battle to exit safely with my kids has made both he & I treasure a simple, calm, kind, funny relationship. My kids are now 14,15,16 and are so wise. Recurrent cancer risk remains very high for me so please be mindful of how all that adrenaline/cortisol flooding your body end up & I really hope you get to the point I am. Battle worn but now so free & happy it was worth the fight.

Sorry to hear how 'Battle-worn' you are. I understand because I've had long-term medical fights are it really takes it out of you. Wishing you speedy success.

Oh - I am so sorry to hear how your health suffered. And again, unsurprised - a close friend developed breast cancer a year after her hideous divorce from a violent man and we both thought the same as you - that it had to be related to the relentless fight or flight. I now have my ‘lives with’ order for my youngest (who is 8, and autistic - my two oldest with my ex live at home but have both started uni courses locally and are over 18). The judge was fantastic in the children’s hearing, saw through the lies (thank god), handed him and his horrible barrister a slice of reality and told him to start listening to his child. She gave me a lives with order and amended it 3m later to give me permission to remove the ‘spends time with’ if I needed to (hadn’t even asked for that - but what a relief). It’s just the financials now. I say ‘just’ - I’m sure you can imagine it’s a nightmare. It’s cost my kids and I over £70k in legal fees (which I couldn’t spare to begin with) and I have to represent myself now.

I’ve been putting off the SRA complaint because of exactly what you describe -‘I recognise the acute stress that going through all the info will cause me, I have to hold my nose and dive into the psychological piranha pool and construct my complaint from all the lies about my little girl and I.

anyway. Please don’t do anything that causes any stress… and thank you for your response. I still feel like starting a revolution- the toll that this process takes is appalling and all in the name of keeping lawyers in Audis and shiny shoes, and women in their places.

I am sorry that you have both had such bad experiences. However i doubt there is a way to resolve this for others. I don’t agree that the system is rigged against any one gender. It is simply inherently flawed when it comes to extreme people. It’s primarily designed to provide a way for two reasonable people with realistic asks to come to a resolution. It does take account that there might be conflicting or irreconcilable asks. It does take account of emotional impact on the parties. And unfortunately this is the playground that can be exploited by abusers.

The problem is that non abusive people can be emotionally charged and under stress because divorce has high stakes. This causes normal people to display behaviours that can be obstructive. The system allows for this on the basis that this is a reasonable person who given a second chance will behave reasonably. This is generally the case. It isn’t blind to people behaving like assholes or being abusive. But it can be difficult to tell two angry people apart.

There is a need for reform. One of the reasons for the introduction of no fault divorce is to remove an area of conflict. There simply isn’t any need to prove who is to blame and family courts don’t exist to provide closure.

The reality is that if you are divorcing an abuser you need specialist legal advice and a strategy. And one of your objectives should be to get this person out of your life completely and irrevocably.

Extreme people, and company directors / the self employed. Also unable to deal with a couple in which one was both main carer and the one with the paye reliable income, whilst the other was free to trot off and develop their company about which they are now lying. I think the lack of accountability for the contents of form e, and the ease with which solicitors and their clients can lie about assets, children and family despite clear and reputable evidence to the contrary is what has shocked me most and destroyed any faith I had in our legal system. There are no consequences, and the court doesn’t seem to care that people lie about their assets and income.
the other notable piece of learning was the extent to which solicitors, should they be so minded, can actively ramp up the hostility (mine persuaded my ex to stop mediation - the mediator was very unhappy and said she felt we could have reached settlement; he bombarded me with letters - 9 in one day at one point so I couldn’t possibly keep up; made statements and accusations that were just inflammatory and served no other purpose than to cause distress and seek reaction) - they have a vested interest in ‘contentious divorce’, I guess, since it pays well and there seem to be no safeguards.

so I’ll file a complaint but I won’t expect any action or outcome.

My understanding was that a code of ethics to which all professional agencies have to adhere, be accountable and promote also applied to legal services.
My complaint was really simple. I included only one (of many) letters that clearly evidenced several text book, domestic abuse behaviours. Again, I included only one watertight example of financial control.
That the response was as defensive as it was (as below) spoke volumes:

1. Client privilege protects solicitors for having to reveal why their documented pay date for court ordered funds was ignored.
2. Solicitors act under client instruction even when that is to spread the unfounded, unevidenced word of the domestic abuser and do not have to answer to that.

On a brighter note, this was my husbands second solicitor. I like to imagine his first told him where to go. And it must have been galling for the second solicitor to be pulled up by the SRA. She sits on some Family Court Advisory Panel which is why I also suspect the SRA acted as they did. It will have been deeply shaming for her as her letters were dictated lunacy and asking for them to be reviewed in this way will not have been a career highlight. So, if you have the energy and it ain’t gonna give you cancer, I’d encourage you to go ahead with low expectations but the more voices the better. Best of luck getting yourself disentangled. I’ll be rooting for you.

Ironically I too am experiencing my husbands second solicitor…

Darkly funny Pearlviewer 😉

@Chillionice ive been thinking about the second key point in your sra response and wondering how that squares with the law on DA especially since amended to be clearer about coercive control etc. if there is evidenced DA in a case, especially if that DA includes manipulation / lying / intimidation / psychological control, how can it possibly be ethical for a solicitor to act as extension of that behaviour? If someone was on trial for theft, their solicitor would not be permitted to keep stealing from the claimant just because their client told them to. I am struggling with that…

I know. I’ll scan my docs and email to you. Please add your email address to that PM you sent me.
I’m healthy and strong at the moment. If my docs can help you now or be used to add weight to any similar response you may get in the near future, some good may come of this.

We can hope. Got a letter from exes solicitor today failing to address errors (in the court paperwork they claim I own / the kids and I live at a completely different house to the one we live in worth double what mine is. I’ve expressed a concern…), failing to address the issue of the central argument of the other sides form e being that ex claims because of me he has been diagnosed with depression and prescribed antidepressants (the irony, when the the truth is the other way around) and run the business down by 75% in turnover therefore will struggle to work therefore needs me to sell the house so he gets more equity - yet a letter submitted to the court in the parallel children’s process states he hasn’t consulted a regulated professional about his mental health since 2012 (so either the solicitor has knowingly overseen the submission of an out and out lie, or didn’t meet their responsibility to check key facts / evidence). So if nothing else I’m going to go in on those points…

I’ve seen your PM trying to describe your email. 😂. I’ve put my docs in work bag. Will feed thro scanner @ work tomorrow and see if I have de-coded your email address successfully!!
Any thoughts you may have on it, please post here. In case someone else stumbles over this thread. Can’t imagine (& hope!) not many people ever will but it’s validating to find others who’ve ended up in unusually dark, tight spots.
Happy weekend reading 😉

In the same boat as so many of you. I could have written some of the above, and with the stress manifesting in significant - and unusual - health issues. Also hoping to report to SRA and Resolution if/when I feel strong enough. Thank you for sharing your journeys. The only people benefitting is the solicitors who perpetuate and encourage the abuse with them as a vessel.

I am so sorry you are going through this. Honestly, it makes me want to start a revolution - the legal system is the problem at the moment and it needs to take a long hard look at how it can be part of the solution

on the subject of interesting health issues - at the peak of wave 1 of divorce stress in June / July 2023 I developed eczema for the first time in my life on my hands and feet. Never had it has a child nor as an adult until now. I haven’t managed to get rid of it on my foot since it started. On my
hands it comes and goes and correlates perfectly with any interaction that I have to have with my soon to be ex husband. Like clockwork my hands will start burning and itching.

I started another thread yesterday which hasn't had much interaction about my DP ex wife who is the narcissistic & abusive one. He is up against it even more as he is a man & courts tend to view women as the victims. She refuses to sell the family home & isn't paying the mortgage but has claimed mental health breathing space so non of the creditors can pursue her. This means the house can't be repossessed either which at this point my DP would be happy with as it's her last form of control. She asked for mediation, had one session where she agreed to put the house on market immediately & in the meantime they'd submit their financial info ready for the nxt meeting. That was in sept. Nothing has happened & she is ignoring all mediators attempts to contact her. She has made it clear she wants this to go to court & for it to cost him as much as possible. She managed to get legal aid as she claims she's the victim. We have letters from social services & men's charities that support my DP as a victim of DV but as he earns too much he doesn't qualify for legal aid himself. He has no money, he is prepared for the house to be repossessed & there to be nothing left if it means being free of her. The DD lives with us as social
Services stated it was not safe for her to live at mother's house due to ongoing alcoholism & emotional abuse. He is no closer to getting a financial order 2 years after separation. It's so frustrating.