Questions about writing a statement for final hearing in family court

[mightymalties]

To be brief, I'm a LiP and need some general advice about writing a (witness?) statement for a final hearing in the family court. I disagree with some elements of the CAFCASS Section 7 report in regards to an increase in contact between our child and their non-resident parent.

I've found this "witness statement template", which has proved very useful to prompt and frame my statement. Would it be acceptable to fill this in (and sign, of course) to use "as is", or would it be better to take my answers and format in a statement more like this one?

Generally speaking, are there any limits as to how long a witness statement should be, or limitations on the evidence/exhibits attached? I intend to keep the statement itself as concise as possible, though need to attach a copy of our child's EHCP which is itself 47 pages long - should I only include the sections which state his SEN or the whole thing?

Are there likely to be consequences if one party does not submit their statement in time? I ask because the other party has a habit of NOT submitting documents in time/doing what has been asked, and suspect they may delay submitting their statement until after they have seen mine.

To complicate matters, neither of us have yet received the order from our previous hearing (I have been chasing it up, and will do so again tomorrow). Our statements are due to be submitted in just two days' time, as the judge explained at the hearing.

I will of course ensure I submit my statement to the court, CAFCASS and the other party in time, regardless of whether I have sight of the court order. I made plenty of notes about what would be expected of this during the hearing, and hope to be as prepared as possible.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

No advice but I'm in the same boat so am following this. I hadn't seen the first form you linked to before but looks really useful. I need to start prepping my statement this week so have to decide.

The second one looks best to me. The first one looks like it’s asking loads of potentially irrelevant questions. Concise is best!

Very unlikely there will be consequences for late filing a statement. What I did with a similar situation was to file with the court and CAFCASS on time and to only exchange with the other party when they had confirmed that theirs was ready to exchange. Sometimes they were on time, other times it was weeks past the filing date. It was never even mentioned in court.

Do you need the order from the previous hearing? Usually if you ring up they can read it to you if you need to know what it says.

The C120 is the form that the courts would like litigants in person to use, so you should use that. (The C120 is new). You do not have to fill in any sections that you believe to be irrelevant.

The court order will usually state if the witness statement is to be limited to a certain number of pages (I note you say you have not received it yet). If not, I would typically suggest 6 pages plus evidence - but the actual length will depend entirely on how much you really need to say. This is one of the reasons the C120 has been developed.

Did the court ask for the EHCP? If not, and there are only certain elements that are relevant, include those as exhibits, and then indicate that you will bring full copies of the EHCP if the court requires them. 47 pages is too much to include as an exhibit to a witness statement.

The consequences for not submitting statements in time is that the court can ignore late submissions. That said, it is rare for a court to ignore a witness statement from a parent for a final hearing, even if it is late. Your ex may well be waiting for yours before he sends his - to counter this, you can inform him you are ready to exchange and agree a time to do so. I presume the court has ordered mutual exchange and not one party ahead of the other.

Would there be a penalty for not using the c120 form? I've got to start my position statement this eve so need to know which is best.

Was hoping to use my existing witness statement as a template

Seems highly unlikely. I’m currently going through proceedings and the C120 hasn’t even been mentioned.

I doubt anyone would mind so long as you have submitted what you have been asked to submit.

The C120 was designed to assist those representing themselves - lots of people are not capable of producing a witness statement properly, even with a template, so they've turned it into a form in order to help.