Latest news with #familycourt
Khaleej Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Khaleej Times
Dh1 billion divorce settlement? Longtime UAE resident files for historic amount
A longtime UAE resident has filed for a Dh1 billion divorce settlement at the Abu Dhabi Civil Family Court. If the Caribbean woman's claim is successful, it would represent the largest divorce award ever granted in the UAE and likely the wider Gulf region, according to Byron James, partner at Expatriate Law, who represents the woman. The case involves a Muslim couple of Caribbean origin, who have been long-term residents of the UAE and are members of an ultra-high net worth family. 'While the details of the claim are private, the size of the award being sought reflects the scale of the family's wealth,' said Byron. He added that the principle at the heart of this case was that what is built together should be shared fairly. 'The court has the ability to recognise both financial and non-financial contributions to a marriage and deliver outcomes that reflect the lived reality of modern partnerships,' he said. 'That is what makes this court so effective. It does not just apply rules. It understands people.' The Abu Dhabi Civil Family Court a secular forum that welcomes both Muslims and non-Muslims and treats all parties with equal regard. In May this year, the court finalised a no-fault divorce between a foreign couple, resulting in a record-breaking financial settlement exceeding Dh100 million — the largest reported divorce settlement of its kind in the Gulf region. Rising confidence in system Byron added that these cases show the 'sophistication and strength of the legal system' in managing complex cases. 'This is not just about wealth. It is about fairness, transparency, and a growing confidence in the UAE's ability to resolve even the most sensitive personal matters with professionalism and dignity,' he said. 'The UAE is no longer simply a financial centre; It is a place where people build their lives. That includes relationships, families, properties, and futures. As high net worth individuals put down deeper roots here, they are naturally turning to the courts when relationships break down.' He said that such couples are finding in the Abu Dhabi Civil Family Court a legal system that mirrors their own expectations of excellence. 'The process is digital, it is bilingual, and hearings are conducted remotely,' he said. 'A divorce can be granted in as little as thirty days, making it one of the fastest legal divorce systems in the world. And yet, this efficiency never comes at the cost of quality.' He cited the example of a client who finalised his divorce while seated in a flight. 'The system is built around the realities of modern life,' he said. 'It respects time, process and above all people. This is why high net worth clients are increasingly choosing to resolve their family matters here.' Minimal emotional strain He said that the Abu Dhabi court not just values speed but also ensures minimal emotional strain to all parties involved, with financial settlements and parenting arrangements dealt with quickly after the divorce is finalised. 'One of the most progressive elements of the system is its approach to children,' he said. 'The court automatically makes a joint custody order at the time of divorce, because both parents are seen as equally important. This marks a powerful shift away from the outdated idea that one parent should take full control based on gender. That is no longer the case. The court prioritises shared parenting and the child's best interests above all.' He added that at its heart, the court is 'rooted in the principles of justice, family, and dignity' and that it 'upholds the core values of the UAE' while delivering outcomes that meet the standards of the most sophisticated global legal systems.
Daily Mail
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Ashley St. Clair's extraordinary transformation for secret showdown with Elon Musk over their baby son... as court staff PAPER OVER windows
MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair was all smiles after a grueling two-hour hearing in New York, where she's fighting for sole custody of her 10-month-old son with . St. Clair, 26, looked striking with a newly cropped bob as she faced off against the Tesla tycoon, 54, who once was a former advisor to before their falling out.
Daily Mail
15-07-2025
- Daily Mail
REVEALED: Why daughter of privilege had FOUR children taken into custody amid fears for their lives - years before she killed her fifth baby
Runaway aristocrat Constance Marten 's first four children were taken into care amid fears for their lives – years before she killed her fifth baby, the Mail can reveal today. Marten was yesterday convicted alongside her violent lover Mark Gordon of causing their newborn Victoria's death after going on the run to prevent authorities removing her. In bombshell testimony made public today after a legal challenge by the Mail, Marten, 38, and her partner Gordon, 51, were deemed too violent to be parents. A family court judge had warned two years before the national manhunt to save Victoria: 'It is much more likely than not that in the foreseeable future the children will be exposed to serious physical violence between their parents. It is quite possible that they will be injured themselves.' Victoria's decomposed body was found in a shopping bag in Brighton on March 1 after the pair had gone on the run and slept in a freezing tent in wintry conditions. It is thought the child – said to have been 16 days old when she died – may have developed hypothermia or been smothered, but no cause of death has ever been determined. But yesterday, as the callous couple were convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence at the end of a two-year prosecution, they refused to accept their culpability. After the verdict was read out, Gordon angrily shouted from the dock of the Old Bailey: 'I'm not surprised by the verdict. It was faulty, it was unlawful. This is not over, it has just begun.' Marten yelled: 'It's a scam', before walking out of the court in fury. The pair had already been convicted at an earlier trial of child cruelty, concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice. For a special episode of the Mail's award-winning The Trial podcast breaking down the Constance Marten verdict, click here Following two trials, costing taxpayers an estimated £1.6million, it can now be revealed that: ■ Gordon is a 'sociopathic' rapist whose sadistic crimes were compared to US serial killer Ted Bundy. ■ A national safeguarding panel is now looking at the landmark case as police have called for new laws to protect unborn children. ■ The couple were granted legal aid for their defence, hiring 19 lawyers at an estimated cost of £600,000 – yet Marten is a trust fund heiress worth £2.4million. ■ Gordon attempted to avoid trial, claiming he was more notorious than Wayne Couzens, the Scotland Yard police firearms officer who murdered Sarah Everard. ■ Marten's father was a page to the late Queen Elizabeth II – and her grandmother was a playmate of Princess Margaret. In an extraordinary case which gripped the country, the couple went on the run with their baby in a 'desperately selfish' bid to prevent her being taken into care after their four previous children were removed by social workers, who feared they would come to harm. Scotland Yard launched a nationwide manhunt, spending more than £1.2million chasing them around the country for 53 days after discovering a placenta in their car when the vehicle was ablaze on a motorway in Greater Manchester on January 5, 2023. More than 100 officers pursued the couple as they fled in taxis, travelling hundreds of miles across the country from Bolton to Liverpool, then to Harwich in Essex, and on to east London before finally resorting to camping on the South Downs in the freezing cold. Five police forces joined the hunt, devoting 1,000 officer hours at a cost of £500,000 to find the child's body after the pair refused to co-operate when they were arrested near Brighton after nearly two months on the run. Police were shocked to discover the millionaire aristocrat had hidden her child's body in a soiled nappy inside a Lidl bag-for-life. It was found beneath an empty beer can and discarded sandwich packaging in a disused shed. Experts have described Gordon, 51, as a sociopathic sex offender considered so dangerous that experts compared his sadistic crimes to those of Ted Bundy or Australian-American serial killer Christopher Wilder. Hooked on violent pornography, Gordon was just 14 when he raped a woman at knifepoint in 1989 after breaking into her home armed with knives and hedge clippers, telling her: 'Don't scream or I'll kill your children.' Over the next four and a half hours, the teenage rapist tormented his victim, telling her she was going to die as he ran the blade down her body. The mother recalled: 'I had no hope. I was told to say goodbye to my children because this was the day I was going to die.' Franklin Nooe, treatment director of a sex assault clinic who counselled Gordon's first victim, described him as a sociopath in the same category as Bundy: 'That's the 5 per cent of the rapists, that's your Ted Bundys … that obviously enjoy it. They are a progressive kind of rapist that would … go from just raping, to raping and murdering'. Within three weeks of carrying out the attack, Gordon broke into the home of a second woman armed with a set of knives. But as he crept into her bedroom Gordon was startled to find her husband home. Gordon battered him around the head with a shovel before fleeing. He was jailed for 40 years, serving half of that in the US before being deported back to the UK. He hid his appalling criminal history from Marten when they met in 2016. It wasn't until he assaulted two police officers in hospital after Marten gave birth under a false name that she learnt he was a violent rapist considered at 'high risk' of reoffending. Gordon attacked Marten when she was pregnant with their third child, throwing her out of their flat window. She fell 18ft, hitting a car on the way. As she lay screaming in agony with a shattered spleen and internal bleeding, Gordon tried to delay paramedics alerted by concerned neighbours. Marten would spend the next eight days in hospital recovering from surgery, but Gordon demanded she be discharged, despite doctors warning this would put her life at risk. The domestic abuse was the catalyst for a family court judge to rule their four older children should be taken into care . It was then that District Judge Madeleine Reardon warned the children were likely to be 'exposed to serious physical violence' adding: 'It is quite possible that they will be injured themselves.' During their prosecution, the couple conspired to delay, lie and obfuscate repeatedly in a bid to sabotage the case. Marten and Gordon will be sentenced on September 15.
CNA
03-07-2025
- CNA
Man granted protection order against ex-wife, who tracked down his former boss about 'black magic'
SINGAPORE: A family court granted a man a personal protection order against his ex-wife, who had contacted his former boss with claims about black magic being used against him. The woman also sent her ex-husband a photo of a man in bed, saying: "I sleep with a man." Magistrate Soh Kian Peng found that the woman's actions had caused her ex-husband distress and amounted to emotional or psychological abuse and granted the requested order. According to a judgment made available on Thursday (Jul 3), the man complained that his ex-wife had engaged in "a pattern of conduct that caused him no small amount of stress and grief", despite his attempts to move on. MAN COMPLAINS OF ABUSE BETWEEN 2012 AND 2025 The man, who has since remarried, said he had suffered emotional and psychological abuse from his ex-wife's behaviour in several incidents. First, his ex-wife applied for a personal protection order against him in 2012, even though he could not have committed family violence against her as he was on reservist training. The case was dropped, but the man said he suffered "significant stress and fear" of the woman's "unpredictable behaviour and random baseless accusations". In 2017, the woman tracked down the man's former boss, known only as C in court documents. She told C that her ex-husband and his mother had been using black magic on C's wife. This supposedly caused C's wife to fall ill and die. She purportedly told C that "your wife actually passed away" due to her ex-husband's late mother. C testified at the trial and confirmed that this had happened. He said his wife had been bedridden for almost eight years at the time. "(The woman) told me that the reason why my wife was bedridden was because (my ex-employee) and his mother put a black magic spell ... on my wife, which I ... found very strange, but I didn't want to say much," he said. At the time, he knew his ex-employee was not in Singapore, so he sent him a message to call him straight away. "So he called me ... and I told him about the whole thing. And that was where he told me that his uncle or ... some relative was also contacted along the same lines to basically just to mention negative points about (my ex-employee)," said C. He showed the court a text message from the woman, who identified herself and said her ex-husband had performed black magic on C's wife, in order to "take revenge" on C. C said he did not make a police report because his ex-employee decided not to. The third incident occurred in 2021, when the man received a message from his ex-wife saying she had slept with another man, along with a photo of an unknown man on her bed. The latest incident was on Valentine's Day this year, when the man received a summons to attend court. His ex-wife had applied for a personal protection order against him, which he said caused "significant emotional and mental stress" to him and his current wife. THE COURT'S FINDINGS The magistrate found that the woman had indeed contacted C to spread false rumours, which falls squarely within the definition of emotional or psychological abuse. The conduct had caused her ex-husband distress. However, the magistrate found that the woman's filing of a personal protection order against her ex-husband did not amount to emotional abuse, as parties are entitled to file their complaints. There are safeguards to minimise the filing of frivolous or meritless complaints, said the magistrate. He found that the woman had committed family violence on her ex-husband and was likely to continue causing emotional or psychological abuse to him. He added that there is evidence that the woman has an undisclosed psychiatric condition, which she was receiving treatment for at the Institute of Mental Health. In her testimony, she described dreaming of her ex-husband and his family members regularly, and seeing him in places she frequented, leading her to believe she was being followed. She had filed police reports and applications for personal protection orders against her ex-husband. Her overall behaviour demonstrated "a clear pattern of conduct" on her part, continuing to harass him despite the man resolving to go his separate way after their divorce. The magistrate said it was necessary to order the personal protection order against the woman for her ex-husband's personal safety. "It was clear to me that the present case was one where (the woman's) conduct had impacted (her ex-husband's) living circumstances and thus exacted a toll on him," he said. "The way (she) had acted was clearly affecting (his) personal life, as well as his professional relationships."
BreakingNews.ie
01-07-2025
- BreakingNews.ie
'I am a man, this is embarrassing': Man weeps as he tells court his wife hit him
A man wept in the witness box and said, 'I am a man - this is embarrassing' after disclosing that his wife hit him at home. At the Family Law Court, the man was giving evidence as part of an ex-parte application to obtain a domestic violence Protection Order against his wife. Advertisement He said that his partner struck him while he was in bed and also engages in name-calling. Judge Alec Gabbett said that the man's wife had got a domestic violence order against him before. Judge Gabbett said that he was granting the man the Protection Order commenting that 'the violence is concerning'. After seeing the man weep in the witness box, Judge Gabbett said to him: 'This is very normal. It is very stressful to you, and this is a stressful situation.' Advertisement The man said: 'I am no father of the year, I am no husband of the year. I raise my voice and she classes it as domestic abuse.' Judge Gabbett asked 'why are you frightened of her?' and the man replied: 'It is the name calling.' He also alleged that the woman sporadically hits their children. He said: 'She hits them with a belt.' He said: 'Once or twice it has happened. She shows her shoe-" and Judge Gabbett said 'and they are gone'. Advertisement The man said his wife has taken herself and their children to a refuge, and Judge Gabbett said that he expected her to also to come to the district court for an application for her own Protection Order. The man said that his children 'have no business in a refuge when they have a home'. On his application, he said: 'I don't want to do this. I really don't, and if I don't, I am leaving myself open.' The other four applicants for Protection Orders before the court were all females, and Judge Gabbett granted the orders. Advertisement In one case, a woman said that her now ex-partner tried to break her teeth while the two were on holiday, stating 'he tried to take them out'. Judge Gabbett said: 'He is just jealous of your teeth? Clearly, that was very frightening.' Ireland Spanish tourist raped in Dublin city centre says s... Read More The woman said that her ex has a criminal record and he has been in prison. In another case, an elderly mother in ill health secured a Protection Order against her son. She said that has called her 'an ungrateful, bitter, old hag'. The woman said that she locks herself bedroom door at night and Judge Gabbett asked her 'how are you going to deal with the next eruption?' Judge Gabbett said that he would issue a barring order summons where she can apply for a barring order against her son.
