HJ v QY

Facts

The applicant wife, 'HJ' ('W'), in her mid-thirties, was introduced to the respondent husband, 'QY' ('H'), now in his early forties, in around 2017. They married on 27 April 2018 and the marriage ended in 2021, by which time they had a child, 'C', now seven. C lives with W under a 'Lives With Order' made by the Family Court under section 8 of the Children Act 1989, H having video contact only, and H is in arrears of child maintenance which W told the court exceeded £35,000. W issued her Form A seeking financial remedies in September 2023. Although the parties remain legally married in the UK, H remarried in a religious ceremony in June 2025. The proceedings ran to no fewer than 15 hearings before Recorders, Deputy District Judges and a Circuit Judge, HHJ Hess, Deputy Lead Judge for the Financial Remedies Court, and generated repeated third-party disclosure applications against banks, the DVLA and others because H provided no accurate disclosure of his means. Hearings earlier this year led to H being debarred from giving evidence at the final hearing, with inferences from W's evidence to fall in her favour in case of doubt. H did not attend the final hearing, at which W alone gave evidence, represented pro bono by counsel through the Advocate scheme.