Pearce J said: ‘It is, in my view, to the child’s interest in another respect to allow the husband to remove a part of his fund from the settlement. He brought into the settlement reversions that were substantially all that he possessed; he now has, apart from these funds, no expectations and very little property; if, as seems likely in view of his age, he remarries, he has extremely little to settle on any future wife or children. If I refuse his request and devote exclusively to this child all the money that came from him, allowing none of it to go to any future wife or child of his, it may quite reasonably give him a feeling of injustice and impair the satisfactory relationship between father and child, a relationship of whose existence his generous dealing with the question of her maintenance gives some indication. Moreover, in the eyes of fair-minded members of the family, or friends, and of the child herself when she grows up, such an order will probably seem unjust and an excessive preference of the child’s interests to those of her father. To produce this result would cause a loss to the child which the retention of the money would not compensate. To produce a happier result by the surrender of some part of the husband’s fund would, in my view, be a benefit to the child. There may be cases where financial stringency might compel one to disregard such a benefit, owing to the necessity of keeping every available penny for the child, but this is not such a case.’
Judges:
Pearce J
Citations:
[1951] P 218
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Ben Hashem v Ali Shayif and Another FD 22-Sep-2008
The court was asked to pierce the veil of incorporation of a company in the course of ancillary relief proceedings in a divorce. H had failed to co-operate with the court.
After a comprehensive review of all the authorities, Munby J said: ‘The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Family, Trusts
Updated: 07 December 2022; Ref: scu.652169
