The High Court ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear a wife’s judicial separation proceedings and that she had established the behaviour ground under the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act 1989. The judgment addressed preliminary issues; it did not grant a decree of judicial separation or decide ancillary financial relief.
Mr Justice Abbott found that the family’s habitual residence was Ireland for the purposes of Brussels II bis. He also found that both spouses were ordinarily resident in Ireland throughout the year before the proceedings began, giving the court jurisdiction over any residual property matters necessary to exercise its powers under the 1989 Act.
The spouses, identified in the judgment as R. S. and P. S., are English citizens and have six children. They maintained homes in Ireland and the Cayman Islands, with the family generally spending about nine months in Ireland and three months in Cayman. In assessing the family’s centre of interest, the judge considered the children’s births, schooling and welfare, the parties’ stated plans to raise their family in Ireland, and the husband’s business administration from the Irish home.
The husband disputed jurisdiction and argued that the marriage had been normal until shortly before the wife issued proceedings in May 2008. He said she had filed after becoming involved with another man. The court noted that the wife’s relationship with the other man continued, but found it was not why the proceedings had been started. The wife did not rely on her own adultery as a ground for separation.
In examining the behaviour ground, the judge considered evidence of a controlling and critical dynamic, incidents of violence, and the husband’s letter expressing interest in divorce while he was away from the family in Cayman. The court found that the letter and a Christmas Eve incident involving the husband kicking toys and Christmas stockings out of a room triggered the wife’s decision to seek significant change in the marriage.
The judge rejected the wife’s claim under the separate ground that a normal marital relationship had not existed for at least a year before the application. He also found that the controlling and victim dynamic alone did not establish the behaviour ground. However, he concluded that the behaviour surrounding the triggering events meant the wife could not reasonably be expected to live with her husband. Continued cohabitation for less than six months after the events did not prevent her from relying on that ground.
The judgment therefore resolved jurisdiction and whether a statutory ground was established. It left the proceedings to continue; no final separation decree or financial orders are recorded in the supplied judgment.