Conduct in financial marriage break-up disputes

Should bad conduct – domestic violence, economic or other abuse – be taken into account by
judges when splitting family assets? Judges do not like trawling over the history of marriages.

Such cases used to take weeks when that was done and were hugely expensive and often just
ended in ‘He said/ She said’.

Conduct is only taken into account if it is so, gross or horrible that it is “inequitable” and
“unfair” to disregard it. This used to be serious violence, sex in the marital bed or paedophilia.

Nowadays however, judges tend not to want to go into the “attic of the marriage” but instead
only take conduct into account if it has a financial aspect, ignoring, for example, serious
violence.

For example, if a man were to hit and hurt, his wife so badly and give her trauma that she
could not work, then it would be right that she would get a larger capital settlement to take
account of that.

Anything short of that, judges disregard.

There is a growing clamour for this to be reversed and for conduct to be punished.

Should that include committing adultery? More than once? More than one person? Violence? Shouting? Lying, cheating?

Where does one draw the line?

The senior judges have developed case law over time setting precedents.

It has developed in a way that, however unpleasant and harmful a spouse’s behaviour has been,
it is unlikely to be taken into account and this causes disbelief and a huge sense of grievance in
particular in the case of serious domestic violence.

These are the sorts of legal questions which are literally best resolved “in the pub”, in other
words conversations between ordinary people and husbands and wives, who can then tell the
legislators what changes they want.

The quicker this conversation starts, the better.