No more Legal Aid for divorce/children cases

[lalawyer]

Hi
Have been following many threads for some time but not posted before. Felt this was an important topic so here goes...

I'm a lawyer working in legal aid (doing domestic abuse/divorce/contact/residence cases) and a single parent.

The government have published a green paper, now out for consultation, proposing to make Legal Aid totally unavailable (i.e. even to those on benefits or low incomes) for divorce, financial aspects of divorce, residence and contact cases, except where there is domestic abuse involved.

This would mean the following clients would not be able to get legal aid

• those wanting to apply to Court to have contact/change living arragements for their children
• those on the receiving end of an application for contact/change living arragements for their children
• anyone wanting to get divorced
• anyone wanting to be represented in court for family finances on divorce to be sorted out e.g. to ask for spousal maintenance/house to be sold to release lump sum and so on.

Many cases can be sorted out in mediation but in my experience some just can't and it seems to me that to be on the receiving end of a court application and then not be able to get legal aid is potentially daunting.

Does anyone have any views on this?

Any responses much appreciated. Cheers.

I am a grandparent who has been trying to see grandson since 2004, i have spent over £30,000 mainly self represented, have had many false allegations against me the mother breaks every court order going, refuses mediation or anything else,she doesn't bother even turning up at court most of the time, the judges do nothing.

The mother who is on legal aid, emotionally abuses my grandson, even when she has been ordered to send me a photo, she deliberately sends an out of focas photo that could be any child, it has been admitted she has problems letting him go, how she gets legal aid, i don't know.

Any person breaking court orders should have there legal aid immediately stopped.

se emy ex got legal aid to send me letter saying wants to see dc or will take me to court for contact i responded to his solictor thats fine but he needs to either answer his phone or emails to me so can arrange it

He wont insists through his solictor so i wrote saying yes contact fine need to discuss it .( been a year so needs be done slwoly as ds3 has sn ) offered to meet him somewhere with the dc ( i dont drive he does)

Also told his solictor i would happily go te mmedation so that way has to talk to me

Yet no response and he is still entitled to legal aid and guessing under new rules still will be

Has anybody got any previous experience in dealing with an ex-partner (still married) who has gardianship of our children, an obvious cocaine addiction, an abusive behavior, who made false allegations to the police and that is just some of the main troubles, without getting into the details.
This situation is now out of control, so if anybody ever had such experience in dealing with such a person, and is ready to discuss it, that's be gratefully appreciated, because frankly, I don't know how to manage that side of life any longer...
Thanks

I'm really worried about these changes, I've been in the process of divorcing for nearly four years now :( I saw a new soliciter a few weeks ago, she advised me that while the divorce could be covered by legal aid the finacial stuff couldn't. the sadest part is we aren't fighting about things at all, my home got repossessed where my ex refused to pay anything to help, and really settling the finacial stuff for me means working out who the mortgage shortfall of £30K is responsible for paying off. I know I should porbably just give up and try to start paying it off, but the damn mortage was taken out when he was working, I was not, so although its in joint names, the only income of mine taken into account was my DLA. obviously I sure as hell don't have the money to pay the debt off because I am disabled and don't work, I just about manage to feed the kids, let alone find £30k :(

The whole system sucks, yes its been abused by some, didn't an MP use legal aid recently? but this will penalise those who genuinly need the help............

btp54- what a sad story i feel for you x

njhc- me and my other half have also fallen foul of the legal aid system. That being that my DSD's mother does not work and has claimed her full entitlement of legal aid each time she has dragged us to court.
We have been just over the border for claiming legal aid and have had to foot the 20k bill out of our own pocket (and VERY generous parents). After each court apperance a new order is made, granting the mother access, which she fails to maintain for anything over two contacts. She then doesn't see my DSD for 3-6 months, after this she demands to have MORE contact with her than stated in the court order and throws a complete wobbler when we say she can't have her from mid-Dec through to New Year (this year she is claiming to be taking her to New Zealand, last year it was America). When we refuse she drags us back to court, which we then have to pay for and she gets free of charge.

Tried mediation, which we had to pay for and she did not (due to her not working) and she didn't turn up!

Totally agree that there are many deserving cases out there who should get Legal Aid as I can't begin to imagine how scary a potential court case is if you have no money coming in. In and ideal world legal aid would be freely available, but as Niceguy2 has already said "someone" has to pay tax to fund it, and in the current financial climate there just aren't enough "someone's" paying into the pot for all these services to continue without being affected.

'Nice'guy, I really don't see why you're holding up the US and China as shining examples of other countries. Both are extensively criticised by Amnesty International for their flawed legal systems, and the US is one of the very few Western countries to still maintain the barbaric system of killing convicts for some crimes. Why can't we look at Sweden, France, Norway, Germany, etc- all countries closer in size (the UK doesn't have seperate states like the US, so is a completely different legislative system), culture and economic situation to the UK- except where we've follishly tried to copy the US freemarket experimentation which has clearly failed. All of those countries have some form of 'legal aid' type system, and all are economically more successful than the UK at the moment despite being subject to the same outside economic pressures. I'd say they're more of an example to us, of how it is necessary to if anything expand the welfare state and state in general. But why let rationality get in the way of a good tory rant, right?

PS I think mediation can be brilliant, but they unfortunately don't have the training to deal with men who are emotionally abusive- I actually had to temporarily leave on session (in tears) as ex was verbally/emotionally abusive right in front of the mediator and she did not know how to deal with it. I can only imagine how much more difficult it would have been if ex was a truly violent man, and that's why we need the court system to be available for vulnerable people.

Sorry, even more commenting, though: I can kind of see the point in some sort of limit to the number of cases someone can bring with legal aid- friend of mine has a really stupid ex who constantly gets his solicitor to send her threatening letters about court etc when she has offered mediation and contact and he's failed to turn up for appointments- so I can see both sides of it, as he is blatantly taking the piss and using the legal aid system to enable this- but restricting it to say after mediation has been tried and broken down, or if mediation is unadvisable because of DV, would work for that I think.

If it wasnt for legal aid then my partner wouldnt be seeing his DD(3 at the time). ExW stopped all contact and moved house when she remarried, as she didnt like explaining that her new husband wasnt her dad. If DP hadnt have been able to get legal aid there is no way we could have afforded to pay for solicitors. Mediation was arranged, she didnt turn up... even at the court house she refused to budge from her no contact decision despite her solicitor advising her against that. We ended up with 3 weekends out of 4 and part of the holidays. The judge told her she needed to grow up and realise that DP was her DDs dad and that no matter what she did that would always be the case. DP didnt see his DD for 9 months, missing out on her 4th birthday and christmas, now she says its good as 'mummy cant stop me seeing you'.

Lets just hope that she doesnt mess around with this order and we have to take her back to court....

I can see how removing it in some cases would be good as it would stop people abusing the system, however by removing it, it could potentially stop a parent seeing their child.

I think this will basically result in the poor (and not so poor) being denied justice. It's terrible.

I am not against the tightening up of legal aid in some areas - for example if someone is repeatedly ending up in court for the same issue then an investigation should be triggered to see if the system is being abused in anyway, and if found that it is, legal aid for that issue (but not for any other unrelated issue) should be stopped.

I don't think it's enough to only protect family law in cases of DV. It is so under-reported that many, many vulnerable people will lose legal protection, which is not right.

And while there are cases where NRPs are falsely accused of DV in order to unfairly prevent contact, how common do people think this really is? We don't have any figures to look at, but false reporting of any crime tends to hover at the same figure, which is less than 10% and usually under 5%. Which means that unless you believe that resident parents are inherent liars who are different to the rest of the population, most of them are telling the truth when they make allegations of abuse.

I totally agree with QueenofFlamingEverything. It's a totally misogynistic idea because lots of mothers don't work. So how on earth are they supposed to afford court fees and solicitors? Surely this would lead to a massive abuse of the system by men that can afford to continuously go to court?? And there would be almost no other option for non-working single mums to claim domestic abuse in order to gain the funds to fight applications in court.

It hasn't been thought through at all, it will just lead to abuses of the system on both sides - but will predominantly favour those who can afford the system - not the women looking after children.

The reason could be that there are some solicitors that don't really work in your interest but work with the otherside for a big fat payout. They are known as bread and butter solicitors, it's fraud really and they drag it out for months or years. Not all are dishonest but the ones that are have spoilt it for everyone else. Make sure you ask to see all paperwork that the court sees. The country is paying billions out for nothing, this is a scam. Does you know anyone that has succeeded because everyone I ask say they lost. Lots online about this, see bent lawyers. This is what the Government must and should be looking at to save billions.

Hopefully this means that more people will think twice before default breeding or marrying somebody they have doubts about to begin with but 'thought they'd change'.
Taxpayers money going on this, and all the consultations for 'depression' that people now claim to have, is ridiculous.
Let's get rid of the nanny state and people might start taking a bit more responsibility for their lives and think about their choices more deeply.

p.s If you can't afford to have children, don't have them.
If I had been rich, I would have had a child, one child, but I am not rich, so I didn't have children.
I am not a burden on the state or the planet.
Or on myself.
People need to start taking a direct look at the consequences of their actions, and maybe this bill will start the ball rolling in this direction.

Hi lalawyer
Im hoping you're still on here as i really need some help please.. the father of my baby left me when i was 9 weeks pregnant, im now 12 weeks pregnant and feel much happier with life now than before he left as he was a very negative influence but i cant stop worrying about when the baby is born.
My ex is Jamaican and despite me requesting to meet his family several times during our relationship i never had the chance to meet them because my ex told me they didnt want to meet me because im white. My ex told me on numerous occassions that his mother beat him as a child and also that it is understood within Jamaican families that grandparents can discipline their grandchildren however they please, I have seen the stick his mother used to beat him with.
I understand that my ex and his family need access to our child but i want to protect him or her from harm as much as possible...ideally i want to be present for all visits with them, please tell me where to begin?
Many thanks, Sarah

Sarah, you'd be better to start your own, new thread over on the legal matters boards, this thread isn't really active and you will find family lawyers respond.

njhc - I am in a similar position - there are many things wrong with legal aid and the family law system that allows money to change children's lives.

I don't have the answer.....

But as you say it isn't one way - the old system hit people like me and you and the new system hits people in other ways.

Neither are fair.... my exp has even said in his court statement (which asked why he waited so long to try and get contact with his DS) that he had only just found out he could get legal aid. He knew that I would not qualify as I work... myself and my DS are now suffering financial hardship for me having been supporting my DS by working (he also does not pay child support).

Whilst I fully support the need to help those who for genuine reasons can't pay for legal representation and I also think there should be protection for people like me and njhc.

I will have to self rep after the next hearing - therefore legal aid will be being used to `call the shots'.