Family court process

[OliverJames]

Hello,

My cousin has a family court hearing coming up in a couple of weeks, and i am trying to help out by finding the answer to a general question on here, as my recent call to the court didn't give me the clarity I was hoping for!

These are the direction that were given in November last year;

12. EVIDENCE
(a) The applicant shall by 4pm on 3 January 2019 file at Court and serve on the respondent and CAFCASS a statement of the evidence upon which they intends to rely;
(b) The respondent shall by 4pm on 17 January 2019 file at Court and serve on the applicant and CAFCASS a statement of the evidence upon which they intends to rely;
(c) The parties do by 4pm on 4 February 2019 file at Court and serve on one another and CAFCASS, statements in response both to the statement of the other and the addendum CAFCASS report provided for herein, if so advised. Such statements to be limited to 4 sides of A4 printed in 12-point font; and
(d) All statements shall be signed, dated and contain a statement of truth.

Following the directions, the following has happened;

(a) the applicant submitted their statement on time
(b) the respondent got their response back 4 days later than directed and needed to request an extension from the applicant (who gave an additional 1 day even though an additional "weekend" was requested)
(c) the respondents statement contains in the region of 14 A4 pages

The respondent now has until the 4th Feb to respond to the statement, but there has been absolutely no evidence supplied to support the "accusations" so they are not sure how they can respond!?

Should the response from the respondent contain the evidence as "disclosure" or should it be requested by the applicant separately?

Really not sure what to tell them and the court just advised us that they weren't sure what we should expect!

Any help or general advice would be welcomed

OJ

[Peridot]

Hi OJ,
So your cousin is the Respondent? Both parties have submitted witness statements albeit the Respondent was a few days late?
Statements in response to the other parties statement are due on the 4th Feb. Is this correct so far?

Basically the statement in response needs to deal with any statements made by the otherside if needs be. If for example one party alleges a specific thing happened which can be evidenced as untrue this should be dealt with in the responding statement. So as an example the statement of the Applicant said that something happened on a particular date at their home but the Respondent was out of the country or at work at that time which can be evidenced by holiday booking confirmation or a work log demonstrating they were at work, then this is the sort of thing that would be included. The supporting document would be included with the statement as an appendix.
For example
At para xx in the statement of Joe Bloggs he Applicant alleges that the Respondent attended the property. This is not possible as the Respondent was at work. Confirmation of this can be found at exhibit 1.
You would then attach and mark the work letter as exhibit 1.

The fact the Applicant has not provided evidence to support any allegations they have made is not relevant if the Respondent is able to provide evidence proving the statement by the Applicant is not correct then great. The statement shouldn't just be a rehash of the first it is in response to the statement made initially by the other party. You don't want it as a he said/she said or a complete rehash of the first statement but a response where appropriate to any allegations made by the Applicant (or vice versa). The Court will notice whether there is evidence to support any allegations. You don't want to come across as 'prove it then' type attitude, which isn't helpful to anyone. If the recollection of an event is different then state that but try not to fall into the trap of rehashing old ground that has been covered in the first statement.

I hope that makes sense. What I would say is that you need to try and keep matters factual. It is really tough in family cases, emotions understandably run high. You need to be seen to be trying to be reasonable and able to compromise if necessary. So for example if this were a child contact type situation then putting forward a number of suggestions of how contact can happen and maybe progress over time rather than sticking to one option and being entrenched in that position.