England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)

IN THE CHELMSFORD COUNTY COURT

		Courtroom No.8 Priory Place New London Road Chelmsford Essex CM2 0PP
		16th June 2014

HHJ LOCHRANE:

1. This is the judgment at the end of a fact-finding hearing in the context of a dispute between the parents of two children: M, born on the 19^th June 2007, and accordingly very nearly seven – she is also known as V – and G, who was born on the 13^th September 2010, and is accordingly coming up to four.
2. The father of children is K. He is aged 32 and is, I think, by nationality Malawian. The mother is M. She is aged 31 and she is by nationality, I think, Botswanan. The mother is applying for residence of the two children. The children live with their father and his wife, Ms N. They live together with her two children from a previous relationship and between them the father and his wife, Ms N, have a child, D, now aged one.
3. The fact-finding hearing is concerned with the allegations primarily made by the mother and contained within the schedule of allegations produced by her. The mother's allegations are principally of rape and significant violent assault. The schedule of allegations has been distilled to the allegations contained at numbers one to four in the schedule and seven to 11 – the other matters were excluded at the outset of the hearing.
4. The father has created a cross schedule of allegations and we resolved to deal only with items two and three of the father's allegations.
5. The alleging party brings the allegations and in each case it is for the alleging party to satisfy me on the balance of probabilities that the evidence supports the making of those findings.
6. The parties have been represented. Mr Holmes of counsel for the mother, Ms M, and Mr Mitropolos of counsel for the father, Mr K.
7. The brief history is that the parties appear to have commenced a relationship some time in around 2001 or 2002 and that was I think largely conducted in Botswana. They appeared to have moved in together in or about 2005 and the first child V, also known as M, was born in 2007. There is some dispute between the parties – I am not sure it is actually necessary to resolve it – as to whether or not the parties went through any form of marriage. It is accepted I think on both sides that there was no formal registered marriage, but the mother suggests that they went through some form of informal tribal betrothal of some kind in Botswana, but she too accepts that that was not a registered formal marriage for the purposes of Botswanan law.
8. In January 2009 it appears the father came to the United Kingdom on a student visa. Towards the end of 2009, and it is not entirely clear when, the mother followed him with V and she came to the UK on a visitor's visa. The father it appears, it is alleged at least, conducted an affair in 2010 or 2011. He started one in any event with the lady to whom he is now married, and there is some issue, to which I shall return, as to whether or not the mother also was conducting an affair at about the same time.
9. They originally lived together at [C an address] and it was in or about August 2010 that the father moved out of [C an address] and in about September 2010 it seems the mother also moved out with the children. That seems to have been based, although it is not entirely clear, on some failure to pay the rent, although it does not appear from anything I have seen that the eviction was carried out through the court process.
10. Following her leaving [C an address], it is apparent that the mother with the children spent a few days at least staying with the father at his then accommodation. Subsequently the children moved with their father and lived some of the time it seems, and again it is a little unclear, with his sister. In mid 2012, the mother moved with the children to Manchester, it seems between about April and about August 2012. The father brought the children and the mother back to Essex in or about August or early September 2012, and it seems that the children then moved in with their father. It is apparent that the mother had effectively no contact other than possibly some indirect contact by way of telephone between about October 2012 and May 2013. In the middle of all of that, on the 9^th November 2012, the mother made an asylum application to stay in the United Kingdom.
11. The father in his turn has applied for a right to remain in the United Kingdom and is currently still here on his student visa. The conditions of his student visa have not been complied with, whether or not it has expired in terms of its temporal limitations I am not sure but, in any event it is clear from a very early stage that he did not comply with the conditions of his student visa.
12. I have heard evidence in the course of the hearing from both the mother and the father. There have been no other witnesses which in itself raises some surprise as there were, as will become apparent, clearly incidents which were witnessed by other people who one might expect perhaps to have come forward in support of one or other of the parties' versions of events.
13. I have to say that the outset that having heard evidence from both of the parents, I have come to the conclusion that each of them is, to a lesser or greater extent, fairly profoundly dishonest. I caution myself at this stage of course that the simple fact that somebody is found to have been lying about something, or over a period of time, does not necessarily mean that he or she is lying about everything, or indeed always lying. Nonetheless, I am left with the fairly firm conclusion in my own mind that both of them are profoundly dishonest and in the context I need to look carefully at the evidence which is brought to support the findings which are sought on both sides.
14. Assessing the mother's credibility to begin with, the evidence of her asylum application seems to me to be relatively telling. She, as I have said, made an application for asylum in this country on the 9^th November 2012, the mother having entered the UK as long ago as 2009.
15. In the context of that application for asylum, it is apparent, unsurprisingly, that the mother was interviewed by the Border Agency and the transcripts of those interviews appear in the bundle before me. The first interview was conducted on the 9^th November 2011 and at page D11 of the bundle the question is asked of her: 'Can you briefly explain why you cannot return to your home country?' The response that she gives to that is: 'Because I fell pregnant the first month when I came to the UK so I was afraid to go back home because of my parents.' The next question is, 'Anything else?' The response is, 'It is all about my pregnancy because my parents told me that if I come here I should work because they support me and that I should work to add to their support, and then I lost my second baby, and that was in April 2009, and falling pregnant with this one is like I was replacing the other baby.'
16. The second interview was conducted on the 26^th November 2011 and again the transcript is contained in the bundle. She was asked again about the circumstances of the application. In the background on one occasion it appears there was a raid of her sister-in-law's property which heightened the concerns of the Border Agency. The mother's passport was impounded by the Border Agency on the basis that she had clearly significantly overstayed her visitor's visa. She was asked, and this is question 16 on page D25, 'If this happened in May, why did you wait until November to claim asylum?' The response to which was, 'I was scared because I was depending on my co-partner or ex-partner,' I am not quite sure. 'I have to do everything he says.' The next question is: 'Who do you fear in Botswana?' The response is, 'My parents.' The question then: 'Why?' She says, 'Coming here, it was to come and work and also help them in life, but I didn't do what I promised when I left home. I fell pregnant with my second child when I got here.' She was asked what kind of visa she had and she acknowledged it was a visiting visa for six months. She said she applied for it upon entry and she is then asked: 'Did you tell the IO you wanted to look for work?' The response to which is, 'No.' She is then asked, 'Why not?' She says, 'They didn't ask me about work. They asked why I am going to visit the person I am going to visit.' She then says, 'I am also fearing his parents as well, but they don't stay in Botswana.'
17. Later on in the interview she is being asked about contact with her family in Botswana and about her parents, 'Who do speak to?' and she said, 'My mum, my dad and my sister'. The question then is, 'How often did you used to speak to your parents?' She says, 'Maybe every two weeks.' The question then is, 'So you were talking to your parents quite regularly while you were in the UK until earlier this year.' The response is, 'Yes.' She was then asked, 'What changed?' She says, 'Because of the abuse I was getting from my ex-partner, my parents were also getting threats that if anything happens to him they will be killed, so they wanted me to solve my problems here.'
18. Later on in the same interview, this is page D37, question 165, she is asked, 'What do you think will happen if you return to Botswana?' She says, 'I can be killed. There are those passion killings and nothing is being done about it. Someone can be paid to rape me and I can be infected with HIV. Most of the people in my country are living with that virus so it can be a punishment.' She is then asked, 'Why do you think your parents would do that to you?' She says, 'They can't repay the money for the lobola' (the bride price that has been paid).
19. It can be seen in the context even of those interviews the versions of events given by the mother in justification for her asylum application have varied somewhat significantly.
20. Asked about it in the witness box, she accepted that she had entered the UK in December 2009 and when asked why she waited three years before making the asylum application, her response was, 'Because before that everything was fine with the children's father.' Asked about the interviews with the immigration people, she said that her parents considered her to be Mr K's wife and they could not accommodate her as his wife because she was expected to live with him and she said, 'There is a lot of things they could do to me. I could be abused. I could be hurt. Someone could be paid to hurt me and they would in any event send me back to Mr K.' She said, 'They don't want to hear from me. I have informed them that I am separated'. Prior to that her relationship with her parents had been okay and they had spoken more or less every week, and she said they do not speak at all now. 'There is nothing that I can say which would convince them that I did nothing in our relationship.' She said, 'I haven't spoken to them since we separated,' and she said, 'I didn't even try to discuss it with them.'
21. She was asked about the assertion made in the interview, which she did on at least two occasions, that she had come here to work, which was part of the problem apparently with her parents back at home. She said this in the interview although not in the witness box. In response to a question from Mr Mitropolos, she said no, she had not come to work at all, and that was completely wrong.
22. She was then asked about the second interview and she said, oh yes, but there had in fact been threats to her parents from the father's parents, and the father's parents, apparently, she said now, had threatened to kill her parents, and she said these are people, the father's parents, who know how to get things done in Botswana, even though they are currently resident in Malawi. She said they can pay to get these sorts of things done.
23. She went on to describe the lobola ceremony, which she mentions in the course of the interviews and which she maintains was conducted in Botswana. She says that money had changed hands in relation to that ceremony and this was a sum of money that was agreed by the father and was actually paid, even though he now says that he could not afford it.
24. In the course of the breakdown of the relationship, and the investigation of the children's circumstances, the social services became involved towards the latter part of 2012, in the form initially of a lady called Ann Fitzgerald, and the initial assessment conducted by Ann Fitzgerald is contained in the bundle in Section B. As part of that investigation process, Ann Fitzgerald clearly canvassed with Ms M the circumstances of her residence in the UK and her relationships at home.
25. Ms Fitzgerald records – on page B68 – 'She has informed me that she has family members in Botswana and she is able to return but she is refusing to return to Botswana because she is angry that (Mr K) has told her to do this.' She says, 'She has informed me that he can return to Malawi and she objects to being told to do so.' She then goes on to say, 'We (social services) recently received a telephone call from an immigration solicitor in Birmingham who advised me that she is making an application to remain in the UK under the Human Rights Act as she is in danger from her family members in Botswana.'
26. When she was asked by Mr Mitropolos in the witness box why it was that she had failed to mention to Ann Fitzgerald the concerns she had about returning to Botswana, which she had painted in such graphic terms (that she was threatened with rape and infection with HIV and/or murder of herself and her family in Botswana) her response was 'She didn't ask me that question,' somewhat surprisingly in the circumstances. She said that the problem was that Ann Fitzgerald, she understood, was threatening to take her children away from her and she said that she had not been allowed to talk about immigration in her discussions with Ann Fitzgerald. Furthermore, she had not said anything about being able to return to Botswana, or that she was simply refusing to go back to Botswana because Mr K had asked her to go. She said Ann Fitzgerald had simply made that up.
27. She said she did agree however that she had not said that she could not go back to Botswana. She said for some reason she had decided that she did not want to tell Ann Fitzgerald anything about her dealings with the Home Office. This was in relation to the recording now at page B69, of the investigations of Ann Fitzgerald, in which she says:

'She has not informed me of any reason why she cannot return to Botswana with the children. She has only informed me that she has lots of family members there that she is close to. In view of this, I can only conclude that She's desire to remain in the UK is currently overriding the needs of her children.'

She goes on on the same page to say, 'I am concerned that She has made serious allegations against He, however, continued to seek out contact and proximity to him and, when asked about this, She was unable to tell me the reasons why.'

28. Clearly the social worker was concerned to investigate the children's circumstances and on page B74 it is recorded, under the assessment of the children's developmental needs, that V was born in Botswana and G born in the UK:

'I spoke to V alone and she informed me that she had grandparents in Malawi that she loves very much and speaks to sometimes. V presented as a happy child. I carried out some direct work with her around her world and the people in it and V identified her mother and father as the most significant people in her life and didn't raise any concern about her father's behaviour towards her mother.'

That was in October 2012.

29. The picture is that the mother, preparing to present the picture to the immigration authorities of threats against her life and health from her own family, from the father's family, from all sorts of people, if she were to return to Botswana, was clearly not painting the same picture at all to the social services; indeed, a completely different picture had been painted to social services, and not only by her but also by V, who was talking about the very good relationships that still existed at that time, apparently, with the extended maternal family in Botswana.
30. In addition, at the time the mother was experiencing some possible mental health issues and she was referred to a Dr Biswas in August 2012. The report from Dr Biswas, the Registrar to Consultant Psychiatrist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, appears at page F429 in the bundle. It shows that Ms M was seen by the clinic on the 8^th August 2012, when she attended the clinic alone; so more or less exactly the same time as the parties were splitting up, the mother was making significant allegations against the father and, as I say, at a time when, she was suggesting later in the year to the immigration authorities, it was impossible for her to return home because of the significant threats to her life and physical well-being if she were to do so.
31. Under the section titled 'personal history' the psychiatrist unsurprisingly records in some detail what Ms M was telling the doctors about her circumstances at that time, clearly in the context of her seeking assistance for possible mental health issues from which she might then have been suffering. The doctor records this:

'Ms M was born and brought up in Botswana and her partner is from Zimbabwe.' (I am not quite sure whether that is accurate or not.) 'She and her partner have been together for quite a few years and have a five-year-old daughter who was born in Africa, as well as a younger child who was born in this country. Ms M has been in the UK for about three years now but has overstayed her visitor's permit.

When personnel from the Home Office came to her house in May 2012, and confiscated hers and the children's passports, she informed them of the domestic violence going on at home at the time, but I understand that for the past few months there have not been any concerns in this regard. I heard that the Home Office are looking into the matter of her immigration status, as well as her children's.

Ms M clarified that she did not/could not go back to her country because her second child was born and she was not in a state to go back. Also, she is not married to her partner who has been threatening to leave her for another woman from Zimbabwe whom she knows. She says her partner has got other family members in the UK but Ms M does not.'

Pausing there, that appears strictly speaking not to be true because Ms M had relations, or at least a relation, in Manchester with whom she had comparatively recently been staying. Nonetheless, it goes on:

'She was very concerned that if she sought help from the authorities or even voluntary organisations regarding her current situation, including her health, they might become concerned about the safety or well-being of her children and take them away. And she did take on board that if she were to be physically unable to care for her children, because of weight loss or physical health concerns, the children could be at risk of neglect.

She clarified that her partner does come home almost every night and provides whatever is needed by her and the children, that is clothing, food etc., as she doesn't have any source of income herself, nor any savings. Also because of her immigration status, she is unable to find a job for herself to support her and all the children.'

32. She is described as presenting as well-dressed, making good eye contact, slightly anxious with no abnormal behaviour. Her mood is assessed subjectively at seven to eight out of 10 and she is described as telling the doctor that "today she was relatively much better". She is described as denying any deliberate self-harm or suicidal ideation. "She has denied any current thoughts of harming anyone, including her partner, who she is angry with".
33. Talking of her weight loss, which was a principal concern of her doctor, she said that she had lost 15 kilograms in April 2011 when she became upset upon learning about the partner's affair and again last month lost about 10 kilograms after catching him cheating on her again. The doctor goes on:

'She is motivated to move on with her life and get out of her current difficult situation. Although finding it very difficult, she is considering moving out of the relationship but realises her predicament given the immigration status. She admitted having feelings of worthlessness and guilt re being good, faithful and being taken advantage of.'

34. What is apparent very clearly from the report given to the psychiatrist, at a time when she was seeking assistance with her circumstances, was that she singularly failed to mention any of the issues which she subsequently raised as being of significant importance in the context of her asylum application and her inability to return to Botswana.
35. The reality is that it is clear the position the mother has put before me in rather more graphic terms even than she put before the immigration authorities is simply not true. She is clearly in my judgment lying about her asylum application and what it is that she now says would stop her returning to Botswana. There is no evidence whatsoever to support the suggestions she makes about the completely changed attitude of her family, almost overnight for no apparent reason, or indeed the threats which she feels she may be under from the father's family. In my judgment it is apparent that those issues have been fabricated by her in order to justify making the asylum application which she has now made consequent upon the breakdown of the parties' relationship.
36. In addition, with respect to her credibility, there is some evidence produced late-ish in the day of a Facebook communication between somebody and the father's new wife. The particular communication is now in the bundle at page D55. It is on the face of it a message sent to the father's new wife from the Facebook account of the mother's sister, Z Z M, and the message reads:

'Family breaker and man snatcher. You are now happy. Wishing you all the best. God will bless for all the hard work you did, but what comes around goes around. Guess what, I'm not going to rest until you go down. You were a bad friend. People should hold their man tight because when your marriage breaks a friend is going to lose her man, you pretend to be nice and knowing that you are after my family, having a British stay doesn't mean you having to destroy people. Old woman pretending to be young, seven years older than He – shame on you, gogo. 1975 and 1982 is a big difference. Get your age. The whole family can say my law because they want their son to have a British stay. You are not an angel to them. I LOVE HE. You are mine until death do us part. Just play the game like everyone does.'

That is the message that was sent to Ms N ostensibly from the account of Ms M's sister.

37. Asked about that in the witness box, Ms M said that she did have a sister, her sister is called Z, and the sister does indeed have a Facebook account. She said that she did not have access to that Facebook account and she denied flatly that she had sent the message to S, the father's partner, which I have just read out. She said the message was not sent by her. She has never spoken to S. Then she could not remember the last time they had spoken, although on occasions in the past they had gone to church together and, parenthetically, I think they had been neighbours originally when the father met Ms N.
38. She suggested that this was in fact a message which had come directly from her sister and it had come as a surprise to her to discover that her own sister had in fact been in love with the father of her children, the man with whom she had been living for some considerable time, when she first saw this message.
39. One of the themes that runs in the background of this case is the contention that the mother has displayed herself to be capable of lashing out as a woman scorned and it is suggested that is the foundation for all of the serious allegations which she makes about rape and violence.
40. It would of course have been extremely easy for the mother's sister, the supposed author of this Facebook report, to have provided some evidence in support of that. I am not even sure where Z is resident, but it would have been entirely possible on some level at least for Z to have provided some evidence that she was in fact the author of this message. I am afraid to have to say it seems to me completely obvious that this was in fact a message sent by the mother to Mr K's wife, and, in the absence of any evidence to support the suggestion at all, it seems inexplicable and frankly incredible that the mother's sister should suddenly have popped out of the woodwork on this basis to declare her undying love for Mr K. I am entirely satisfied on the evidence I have heard that the mother is lying about that and that she indeed was the author of this message sent to the father's wife.
41. There is some evidence that the mother has also not been entirely frank about the arrangements for her accommodation following the removal of the parties on whatever basis it was from [C an address]. The father had moved into a property in [D an address] and, as I have said, the mother followed him there.
42. The social worker, Ann Fitzgerald, records in her assessment that the agent to whom she had spoken, the letting agent who had been dealing with the eviction of Ms M and the children from the property in [C an address], told her, the social worker, that She had been offered a temporary room free of charge for a period of a few weeks at least in order to give her time to sort out her situation. However, the social worker says, the mother did not accept this offer and what is absolutely clear is that, having moved out of [C an address], she did move in briefly at least with the father in [D an address] with the children. It is clear that she did not take up any offer, if there was one, of temporary accommodation.
43. In her evidence in the witness box, the mother suggested that it was simply not true that she had ever been offered temporary accommodation free of charge. She says that they wanted her to sign a lease. Once again she suggests that Ms Fitzgerald who, for some unexplained reason, had it in for her, was simply not telling the truth about this and she says she made this up. I do not accept that for a second and I do not understand, and the mother was not able to explain, why the simple fact that she had been offered a lease prohibited her from taking up this accommodation. Had she been offered a lease, one might have thought that she would have seized the opportunity to house herself and the children in an environment, albeit relatively insecure perhaps if she were unable to pay the bills but, nonetheless, which would have required a court order to get her out once she had signed the lease. At least it would have been living under a roof which was not the same roof as that occupied by the man who she was then alleging had been raping her over a considerable period of time and visiting significant physical violence upon her. Nonetheless, the choice she made it appears was to move from [C an address] into the father's property, albeit for a brief period of time.
44. This raises some significant concerns as to the true level of fear the mother actually had of the father at the time when, presented with the alternative of taking albeit temporary accommodation for a few weeks, she chose to move in with the father and take the children with her.
45. Those are three, it seems to me, very stark examples of the significant inconsistency in the stories the mother has told in relation to some of the detail of some of the allegations she makes. It is also apparent that she is significantly inconsistent about some of the detail of what she tells the social services, and she has been significantly inconsistent in what she has been telling the police and the prosecuting authorities in the context of the criminal proceedings. Those are aspects, it seems to me, of the character of the mother's evidence which simply cannot be ignored when assessing the evidence put forward to support the allegations which she makes.
46. Turning then to the equivalent characteristics of the father's evidence. The problems it seems to me are perhaps even more extensive. First of all dealing with the father's immigration status: the father, as I have said, came to this country on a student visa, purportedly to take up a course in some kind of computer studies. In the witness box, he said that he had come indeed on a student visa and that he did not ever start the course. He said that he had come about five years ago in the early part of 2009 and he understood that the visa on which he had come to this country did not entitle him to work in the country but simply to study. The suggestion is made that he did not ever take up the course because his father, who had promised, apparently, to fund the course, pulled the plug on the finances as soon as he arrived in the country, and accordingly that Mr K was left, as it were, high and dry and unable to start his course.
47. He having a partner and a child back in Botswana, the obvious solution of simply turning around and going back to Botswana did not apparently occur to him. He immediately took up paid employment in this country, clearly in breach of his visa conditions. When he was asked by Mr Holmes about the terms upon which he was entitled to remain in the country, he said that he had not bothered at any stage to notify the Home Office of the change in his circumstances concerning his visa. Indeed, he continues to work to this day and it was pointed out to him that in reality he is still subject to the same conditions and he is not in fact entitled to work, but that he said was something he felt had been resolved in his discussions with the Border Agency.
48. He said that he had been in the country for a month or two before he was able to start working, but he had not attempted to start the course which he had supposedly intended to embark upon. There is again in this context some surprising absence of evidence. It is a somewhat curious aspect of this case generally that there is an enormous volume of material contained in four lever arch files and it is notable in very large measure for the evidence that does not appear. One would have thought, for example, that it would be very easy for a letter to be obtained from Mr K's father, or some proper sworn evidence perhaps, indicating that he supported Mr K's position about his immigration status and that the plug had been pulled as described, putting aside completely, as I have said, the obvious solution, which would have been simply to have turned around and gone home again. Nonetheless, there is no evidence from anybody. There is no evidence of a course. There is no evidence of Mr K having signed up for a course. There is no evidence of him having pulled out of that course. There is no evidence from his father as to the finances. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever to support Mr K's suggestions in relation to his change of circumstances which allowed him to take the view that he should work, rather than carry on studying in accordance with his visa or return home.
49. One must of course be a little bit careful I think about becoming too prissy about circumstances which are probably frequently repeated country wide; nonetheless, Mr K's attitude to his immigration status is and has been one of extremely casual dishonesty. It is very apparent that he has been dishonest about his immigration status. He has lied and deceived in relation to his continued residence in the country and frankly in the witness box was extraordinarily casual about it. I do not accept what he says about his immigration status and the circumstances in which he decided to remain as being true. I do not know what is true, but I am pretty sure what he is telling me is not true.
50. A second aspect of the father's evidence is that he suggests that the mother, not he, conducted an affair which was the catalyst for the end of their relationship. This again is an feature of the father's story which is apparently fairly crucial to his contention that the allegations made by the mother are founded in her status as a woman scorned, for which she was largely responsible. This relatively crucial piece of the story once again is notable for the absence of much evidence to support it. Indeed, when Mr K was first the subject of prosecution in relation to the allegations which Ms M has made against him, he made a defence statement, on the 15^th August 2012, and it appears at page F800 in the bundle. In that he hotly denies the allegation of rape, which by then had been made by the mother, and he makes allegations about the mother having threatened him in relation to the breakdown of their relationship, but he singularly fails to mention that the catalyst for all of this apparently was an affair which the mother had been conducting, he says, from the time when she was in Botswana on her own, between him arriving in the UK and her following him.
51. He suggests in the witness box that what caused him to come to the conclusion that there was this affair was the frequent receipt by the mother of late-night phone calls. He acknowledged that coming from Botswana, as apparently they were, they would be both expensive for the maker of the calls and indeed difficult to place. He could not explain why there is a complete absence of any mention of that in any of the statements he has prepared, or any of the evidence he has given at any stage until he stepped into the witness box in the course of this hearing.
52. He was asked how he could explain, if this person who was conducting an affair, or had been conducting an affair, with the mother of his children in Botswana and was attempting to keep it secret, those calls were being made at a time of day which was not only inconvenient in the UK, but even less convenient in Botswana, the time being a little ahead of the UK. They were made late at night apparently, so in the early hours of the morning in Botswana, at a time when the maker of the telephone calls might seriously have expected Mr K to be around to know that the calls were being received. He could give no explanation why this individual was making these calls at a time when it created the high probability of the apparently secret arrangements being discovered, when it might have been much easier and cheaper for those phone calls to have been placed at a time when Mr K was out of the house during the day when Ms M might of course have been expected to be alone. I should say parenthetically that Ms M denies the existence of this affair completely.
53. Mr K suggests that this was an affair, as I say, which had been started by the mother in Botswana before she left to come and join him in the UK, and somehow it was continued for a not insignificant period of time following that, if only on the telephone.
54. However, when he was asked about the paternity of G, a child born to Ms M in September 2010 so just about nine months after she arrived in the country, Mr K suggested that he never had the smallest concerns about G's paternity and it had never occurred to him that G might in fact have had a different father. He says that he discovered the affair when the mother was some six months pregnant and she accepted, he says, there had been something going on. Nonetheless, he maintains that he never had as a result the smallest concerns about the paternity of G. When first questioned by the police about the allegations made by Ms M he gave a no comment interview and, as I have said, none of the details of the allegation in relation to the discovery of the affair have appeared until he stepped into the witness box.
55. There is additionally of course no evidence provided, although that might have been a little bit more difficult for Mr K, of the telephone calls made, when they were made, of telephone bills etc. It seems to me that there is almost nothing to support the allegation made by Mr K of the existence of this affair, and of course it is extremely convenient for him to create this story about the mother's affair because it continues to paint her as the woman scorned, who was in fact the guilty party rather than the victim. I do not believe it for a second. There is nothing to support the existence of this affair. Had there been such an affair, and had it played the important role which Mr K now suggests it played in the context of their breakup, I can see absolutely no reason at all why it was not mentioned significantly earlier than now.
56. Another problematic area of Mr K's evidence is the start of the relationship with his current wife. Mr K, who tells me in his evidence that he has only ever had sexual relations with two women in his life, Ms M and his current wife, suggests also that as a good Christian man he did not embark on any relationship until such time as his relationship with Ms M had come to an end. He suggests that his relationship with his current wife did not in fact start until July or August 2012, at the time when his relationship with Ms M was very firmly over, at the time it seems more or less when he was moving out of [C an address] and into the property in [D an address].
57. Ms M suggests that the relationship between the father and Ms N had started considerably earlier. I have already read out the account which she gave to the psychiatrist of that and how it had occurred significantly earlier in about 2010, that they started this affair when they were living as neighbours.
58. Given the circumstances once again, one might have thought that one might have heard from Ms N herself, who is clearly available to be called. The absence of her evidence leaves a number of gaping holes in various areas, and this is one of them. She could easily have come and told us when their relationship started. There is helpfully some record of what she says about it, and it appears at page C33 in the bundle. It is in the context of a section 37 report by Essex County Council in the context of the concerns which had then been raised in my court about the future of the children. The social worker reports relatively innocently, given I think the social worker probably did not understand there to be any controversy about it, that Ms N had informed her, the social worker, that her relationship with Mr K began at the end of 2011. They started living together in September 2012, she says, after Ms M had reported Mr K to the police. She then goes on to say however she was not very sure of the dates the relationship began. They married at the end of 2012.
59. Given the general picture which I think is becoming clear of the unreliability of Mr K's evidence, it seems to me pretty clear that he is not telling the truth about the start of his relationship with Ms N either. The idea that somehow this relationship was kindled and consummated and ended in marriage within the space of a couple of months effectively, from the middle of 2012 to the end of 2012, is frankly incredible. It seems to me much more likely, particularly given the measure of corroboration from the mother's reports in other places, this relationship with Ms N did start considerably earlier than Mr K is suggesting. This is another aspect of his evidence in which I find that he has not been truthful.
60. Yet another problematic area of the father's evidence is the question of his HIV status. The father has been discovered unfortunately to be HIV positive for some time and the diagnosis was made in the course of his stay in this country. In the witness box he told me that he had started his relationship with this mother when they were at school, that it had continued on a sexual level until about April 2011, and that there had been no relationship effectively existing between them thereafter until they finally split in the middle of 2012.
61. He said to me that he had had no other sexual relationship with anybody except his current wife. He accepted that he is diagnosed HIV positive and he said he was diagnosed with that about four or five months after G was born. He suggests that he has not contracted the disease through any sexual activity. He rightly points out of course that it is not only a sexually transmitted disease, and that of course is entirely correct. He maintains he has absolutely no idea how he caught it. He says that he understood that Ms M was tested for HIV when she was carrying G and he says that he had a test because it was a relatively normal practice and routine. He said that he had had several HIV tests in Africa and he used to do it on a relatively regular basis, indeed he had had a test in December 2008 when applying for his visa to come to the UK.
62. When asked how it is he thought he might have contracted the disease, he said that whilst living in Africa he had had a number of tattoos, he said indeed he is tattooed all over his body. He had not had any done in this country, but the ones that he had received had been done in Africa by friends, he said, or a particular friend, and he said that his friend had told him that he had changed the needle and he thought that in fact that may not have been true and that may be how he had contracted HIV. All of that of course is theoretically possible.
63. When asked about the communication of his HIV status to Ms M, with whom of course he had been living and continuing to have sexual relations for some considerable time after he would have contracted the disease, had he contracted it in Africa, he said that he had never actually bothered to tell the mother about his HIV status and he had left her to find out about it from the police. He said that he did not think it was necessary to tell her about his HIV status. He was pressed on the subject, I think in part by me, as to how it was that he had felt it appropriate not to communicate this to a lady with whom he had been having sexual relations. More importantly perhaps in the context of the care that he had clearly been administering to the children on a relatively intimate basis, I am sure, over a period of time when he was almost certainly HIV positive without knowing it. He said that he had actually spoken to a doctor about that in this country and the doctor had assured him that it was in fact his choice as to whether or not he bothered to tell the mother, and obliquely the children, about his HIV status, even though he had been HIV positive when he was having a sexual relationship with her.
64. He said that the doctor had said to him that all he really needed to do was to advise the mother that it might be a good idea to get herself tested for HIV without telling her why. He says the doctor did not advise him that he should tell Ms M of his HIV status and the doctor apparently said to him that as long as she was okay, he could relax about it and that he certainly did not need to mention it for the purposes of any concerns about the children's health. If he had indeed received advice of that kind from a qualified medical practitioner in this country, it would have been a piece of negligent advice by a doctor of quite staggering proportions. Indeed, it is almost criminal in its enormity.
65. In the context of all I have already said about the comparative unreliability of Mr K's evidence, I completely and utterly reject this story in the absence of any evidence to support it. It would of course have been entirely possible for Mr K to have produced something from the doctor confirming that that was indeed the advice that he or she had given. I can think of a very good reason of course why the doctor has not produced such evidence. I do not believe it to be true for a second. It would show such a negligent want of care in the doctor's part as to frankly take the breath away. I am entirely confident that Mr K is lying about that and the corollary of course of that is that throughout the period when he was HIV positive, in the knowledge of his status, he has shown a completely callous disregard of the health interests of Ms M, and perhaps importantly the children, by completely failing to inform them and their medical professionals in order that their own status could be established with a view, if necessary, to treating them. It seems to me it is a matter of some very considerable concern going forward that he has been objectively so callous and so selfish in relation to that issue.
66. On a slightly less dramatic level, Mr K also assured me that in the context of the relationship the parties had, there really was very little discord in the family home to which the children might have been exposed. He was asked again by Mr Holmes about the evidence he gives on this and he said that there was no question of V ever having witnessed the mother being covered in blood, or him being violent to her. That simply could not be correct. I will return to the evidence of V in due course, but he suggests that V has been brainwashed and he never threatened the mother with a knife or cut her. He said in the witness box, 'We didn't argue ever in front of the children. We just talked'. He acknowledged there was a significant difference between a disagreement and simply talking about something.
67. He was then taken to his own statement, or one of the statements, in these proceedings. It is page B46 of the bundle. At paragraph 13, in January of this year, he says: 'I confirm that I have vacated the home I shared with the applicant in order to avoid the constant arguing. I wanted to protect the children as they were witnessing such arguments and I felt it was not good for them because they would be upset.' When asked by Mr Holmes about that in the context of his earlier assertion that they never argued in front of the children, they only talked, he accepted that they did in fact occasionally argue in front of the children. Again, it seems to me, that that is another fine example of Mr K playing fast and loose with the truth and simply painting the picture as he currently expects me to believe it to be. It is relatively apparent that he is not telling the truth when he suggests that there were no arguments in front of the children.
68. V plays a significant role in the evidence which I have to assess for the purposes of coming to a conclusion on the allegations which are made. In the second social services investigation which took place in May 2013, at page B81, the social worker records, having spoken to V, this: ' V reported she did not like it at the other house because daddy used to hit mummy and she had blood on her face.' The social worker goes on: 'It would appear that she still remembers the domestic violence she witnessed when her parents were still together. Children are not passive witnesses to noise, tension and violence at home. Her little eyes and little ears don't miss much.'
69. That of course has to be compared with the passage I have already read out from Ms Fitzgerald's report and analysis in October 2012, where V is recorded as not raising any concerns about her father's behaviour towards her mother. In the witness box, when asked about how it was that V could have come to have said such a thing, Mr K highlighted the fact that the allegation made by V had not been recorded in the Ann Fitzgerald report and he said that he was entirely satisfied that the mother has in fact been brainwashing the children. This piece of evidence from V was a direct result of the mother brainwashing children.
70. The background context was then put to him of course, which is that in October 2012 the children had for much of that year at least been living with their mother for a significant period of time in Manchester without much influence from their father, and yet when it came to be that the child was questioned by the social worker in October, this allegation, which supposedly was the result of significant brainwashing by the mother, had not surfaced.
71. However, by the time she he was interviewed by the new social worker, Ms Kambafuele, in May 2013, she had not in fact had any face-to-face contact with her mother since October of the preceding year. Mr K suggests that the brainwashing in those circumstances must have been conducted by the mother over the telephone. He said the mother telephoned and spoke to the children three or four times a week over that period. I remind myself of course that V at the time was only five. He said that the mother must have been laying these plans for some time and that over this period she had been reinforcing the coaching she had been giving V over the telephone.
72. He was asked further about the telephone calls and had to accept that in the course of these telephone calls the mother had no reason to know whether or not the father was listening in, and that they could very easily have been on the loudspeaker and the mother would never have known that. It was also pointed out to him that this is not an allegation that he has made prior to stepping into the witness box.
73. He could not explain why it was, if the mother had been schooling V to support the allegations she was making, the allegations V made were limited to the potential for domestic violence and did not encompass the rape allegations, which the mother in her turn has suggested at least in part, a sexual assault certainly, took place at a time when V was in the same bed with the two of them. The mother has so suggested throughout I think. The father could not explain why it was that if V had been schooled she did not make some supportive comments in relation to the mother's allegations about those sexual assaults.
74. Once again, I am afraid it seems to me that the father is seeking some excuse to explain away this evidence which is frankly obviously untrue. The idea that this four or five-year-old had been schooled at some point in the preceding year to make this allegation, which did not then surface until May 2013, is frankly incredible and would require significantly greater support than the simple say-so of Mr K, who, as I think I have made perfectly plain, I do not regard as being a truthful witness on any significant level so far. Given the understanding we have of the way in which disclosure is made by children in circumstances such as this, I am entirely satisfied V is telling it at least as she saw it.
75. Finally, perhaps importantly for the purposes of the schedule, there is the incident which developed on the 27^th September 2011, and forms the allegation now numbered nine on the mother's schedule. The father's version of events is first set out at page B52, at paragraph 30 of his statement, and (referring to paragraph 35 of the mother's statement) the details of the incidents as he describes them are as follows:

'The applicant attended a room where I was staying, even though she knew she should not have contact with me as I was on bail, and it was clear to me from the very first few minutes of her speaking to me that she was seeking to provoke an argument with me.

She asked for the bills to be changed over to her, which I didn't object to, but then she started to become hostile and threatening and saying such things as she is evil and that I would soon see this, and she would make my life miserable.

She then started criticising my now wife and it was clear that she was jealous of the fact that I had moved on in my life. I didn't want to hear these things yet again, so I got up from where I was sitting on the bed and I asked her to leave. At this she ran out of my room and approximately one hour later, at 1.00am, the police attended in order to arrest me for making threats to stab the applicant. I made no such threats and I had to spend the night in the police cells.'

76. He says that he wants to rely on the statement of his neighbour, Nigel Hooper, dated the 28^th September 2013, and exhibits a copy. Mr Hooper's statement is at F57 in the bundle. Mr Hooper did not attend to speak to his statement, but his statement says that on the night in question he was in his bedroom watching television when 'at about 11.00pm at night I heard the bedroom door next to me open. The neighbour living in this room is known as K. K is a black male aged about 30s.' There is no dispute I think that it is Mr K. He says:

'The door did not slam or bang. I could just hear it open. My bedroom door was closed at the time so I couldn't see out. After hearing the door open, I heard footsteps going down the stairs in a hurry. I couldn't hear shouting or anything, but in a very short space of time I could hear two voices. I recognised one to be K 's. They were coming from the rear garden. The other voice I didn't recognise – it was a female's voice. It sounded as if they were having an argument but were not shouting. Both of their voices were slightly raised and they both had strong accents so I couldn't make out what was being said. My bedroom window was open and it had been open throughout the incident. From what I heard, I couldn't describe either the male or female as being the aggressor. It sounded like a normal argument – neither seemed to be distressed – and it didn't seem anything untoward was going on.'

77. Mr K was arrested and interviewed about that incident and his interview appears in section F of the bundle from F84. In his statement he says this:

'The mother of the kids phoned me as she was outside the house and she said, "Can you open the door for me as I want to take a bicycle?" so I opened the door for her. She came in and instead of going to take the bicycle, she went into the kitchen.

And then after I just opened the door, I went to my room straightaway. I didn't even say hello. I just went up to my room straight because I've got issues, we've got issues, me and her, so I just went to my room.

I know that the bicycle is behind and she can just go and take the bicycle. And then she went into the kitchen. She was having things she wanted to say to me. I went to my room,' and she said he was ignoring her, she thought he was ignoring her, 'so she went to my room and knocked on the door. I didn't open the door. She knows the code for my room, so she put the code in and she opened the door.'

78. Then he describes a discussion they had and she said, 'Can you help me take the bicycle at the back?' and he says it was in a store room at the back of the property and he said, 'Yes, I went and took the bicycle for her and put it outside. Instead of her just taking the bicycle and going, she didn't go. She went back to my room and when I came I found that she is in my room, and I didn't say anything. I just went back to bed.' He said she started asking him questions about the children and various other things and then started making threats to him and suggested that he would regret it, and he said that his response was he was just sleeping and did not respond to anything. Then she was saying annoying words and insulting him, and then he says, this is now the third time she leaves his room, she went back to the kitchen and he says that at that stage he took out his phone and he says that he decided that he was going to record what she was saying because he was so upset about the things that she was suggesting about her being evil and threatening him.
79. He said then, she having gone down to the kitchen, she was opening the cupboards and he could hear her opening the cupboards from his room, and she is opening the cupboards because she knows where his things are in the cupboards. Then she came back to his bedroom and he says he took his phone, put it on record, and put it under the blankets to record what she was saying. He had encouraged her, with an eye to the recording, to speak English because she was slipping into her first language, and subsequently he says they again went downstairs, she ahead of him, and he followed her because he thought she might be upset and he says, this is now the bottom of page F93, 'She started running into the garden. I just went to my room and opened the door and then I went into the kitchen to go and close the kitchen door, and because she was running,' he said, it is a house which has got steps, she hit the step, he says, and she fell outside into the garden. He suggested further that having recorded the conversation, which he suggests he had, he repeated to his sister what he alleges the mother had been saying to him by way of threats and allegations.
80. When giving his evidence in the witness box, he was asked by Mr Holmes, unsurprisingly, as to why in his statements, for the purposes of these proceedings, he had not mentioned anything about this phone recording. He said that he had indeed mentioned it in the police interview but it transpires, although he suggests he in fact produced the phone recording to the police, somehow it was impossible to extract anything from it.
81. I certainly have not heard the phone recording and I have seen no record of anybody else having heard the phone recording. In describing the incident to Mr Holmes, he suggested that a neighbour in the building had in fact opened the door to the mother and had come and told him about her being there, and he then found her effectively on the doorstep asking for the bicycle. That of course is fairly different from the description he gave to the police in the course of his interview about having received a telephone call from her and him letting her in.
82. When he was confronted with that as a difference, he then suggested that no, she had in fact phoned and he had not in fact opened the door, but in any event he said when was giving the interview he really was not feeling terribly well and that might have been why he was not getting things entirely accurate.
83. Mr Holmes then took him to the passage at the beginning of the interview, in which he was asked about his state of health, and it was impressed upon him that if he felt at all unwell he should indicate to the police officers and the interview would be terminated and reconvened at a time when he was feeling better. He could not explain why it was, if his evidence to the police in the course of that interview had been so badly affected by the fact that he was feeling ill, he had failed to mention to the police in the course of the interview he was in fact feeling so unwell. He said he still did not feel that he could say that he felt unwell to the police for a reason which he could not otherwise explain.
84. He went on to say that he did not know about her bike being at the property until she told him about it. He was then asked by Mr Holmes why he had told the police she had spoken to him about it on the telephone. He then said that he had made an assumption about the bicycle. He was asked about the bail conditions, which he mentions to the police in his statement, and he said that he let her in anyway, even though he knew it was a breach of his bail conditions. He again suggested that he was a Christian man and did not want to turn her away, which is why he had not left her standing in the street.
85. He maintained that the back gate to the property was open and it would have been entirely possible for the mother to have obtained access to the property without coming in through the front door and going through the property in order to obtain her bicycle from the shed at the back. He said that he knew the gate was open and she knew the gate was open but he did not tell her to do that and, when taxed about it, he said he did not think that he could get in much more trouble than he already was by letting her in through the front door. When she finally left the property, tripping over the kitchen step, as he suggests, he said that she did not run down the stairs; she went and opened the door and he had followed, but had not been running, and she had simply tripped.
86. In respect of the recording he had made, he suggested he had in fact put the telephone under the blankets and hidden it, but he also acknowledged that when he told the police about the recording, he had told them that she knew perfectly well he was recording the conversation, which was why she had changed to use her first language and not English and why he had felt it necessary to encourage her to speak in English for the purposes of the recording.
87. When asked by Mr Holmes how it is that he was able to say first of all, to me at least, that the phone had remained hidden and she had been unaware of it, but to the police that she was aware of it, and it had not remained hidden, his response was 'they are both the same to me.'
88. He then said that the reason he knew she knew that he was recording was because she had actually told him that she knew he was recording. That was the first time that piece of information came out. He said again, when the incident came to an end, she had left and walked down the stairs, got out, got the bike, and he had simply followed her and locked the gate behind her. He said he had not chased her and, although she did fall through the back door, it was her fault for tripping over the step. He never threatened her with a knife and the rest was completely untrue.
89. His version of events, with the mother going downstairs and back to the bedroom, entering his bedroom on at least three occasions, and possibly four, does not accord of course with Mr Hooper's statement, which the father relies upon in support. Mr Hooper describes somebody running down the stairs, which of course Mr K disputes. There is no mention in any of his statements of the recording on the phone and, again as I have said, he told the police that she knew about that recording, although he told me quite the contrary. He said that he had known about the bicycle being there before she arrived and indeed he knew where it was, albeit that he now suggests that there had been no discussion of that kind. The evidence he gave me was that there was no telephone discussion at all, that of course is contradicted by the evidence he gave to the police. Had there been such a discussion, it is difficult to understand why he did not at any stage in the proceedings, particularly given the bail conditions, simply suggest to her that she should take advantage of the open back gate and collect the bicycle herself.
90. His version of that evening's events, even standing, as it were, alone - putting aside the evidence of the mother to which I shall return - simply does not stand up and is in my judgment yet a further example of Mr K's inability to tell the truth.
91. Accordingly, those are a number of examples in the course of the evidence of the way in which both these parties have shown themselves to be dishonest witnesses. They are both in that sense inherently untrustworthy in the course of the evidence they give. Accordingly, it seems to me that it is important to look for corroboration or other external evidence to support the allegations which have been made.
92. I turn then to the allegations themselves contained in the schedule. Dealing with the mother's allegations first: allegations one to four of the schedule deal with serious allegations of sexual assault and rape. They cover a significant period of time and the mother's evidence is that they occurred on a very regular basis over that time. The mother in her evidence supports the allegations she makes and the father flatly denies everything. There is nothing. There is no meeting. There is no room for misinterpretation of the actions of the father. He simply denies that anything of the kind ever occurred, and he suggests that the mother is making her allegations from a position as the guilty party and the woman who was scorned.
93. The only supporting external evidence to some extent is that of the doctor or nurse at the sexual health clinic, and that appears at page F794 of the bundle and records that the mother, in the course of attending at the sexual health clinic in the middle part of 2012, made allegations of sexual impropriety against the father. It is right of course that that evidence simply records the allegations made by the mother herself, without any other support, and it is telling I think that they were made at about the time when the mother had discovered either for the first or second time about the father's ongoing affair with Ms N, about which she was clearly angry. That is supported by the record of the psychiatrist, which I have already read out. She described herself as being angry and, importantly it seems to me, at a time very shortly after she was talking to the people at the sexual health clinic, apparently about sexual assaults, she did not mention anything of the kind to the psychiatrist.
94. Without going into it in any great detail, the evidence which she has given both to the Social Services and to the police has been very inconsistent about these matters, and it is fundamentally difficult to rely upon. The Social Services in the course of analysis and investigation describe her on a number of occasions as having been unreliable and they find it difficult to accept much of what she said. The evidence put before the police for the purposes of the prosecution was found at the criminal trial, albeit on a higher standard of proof, not to support the findings which it was suggested the jury should make, even before the prosecution case had closed.
95. There is no other evidence. There is no evidence from doctors. There is no physical evidence of any kind. There is no supporting evidence. There is no evidence of report other than, as I say, to the people at the sexual health clinic. Albeit that it is suggested I think that the mother reported the allegations to the father's sister GK , once again there is no evidence, direct evidence certainly, from GK and there is no reason as I understand it why GK should not be here to tell us what she knows about these matters.
96. Such evidence as there is from GK, which appears in the police disclosure at page F479, is a record of a police officer's visit to talk to GK as being allegedly the first recipient of the allegation of rape by the mother. This is dated the 15^th August 2012, at the time when the mother had first communicated her allegations of rape to the police. The officer records GK K as saying that they, that is Ms M and Mr K, constantly argue and he has told GK that he no longer has feelings for Tinnie – that is Ms M. GK is recorded as being fed up being in the middle of these arguments and does not think it is fair for the children. He has also told Tinnie this but she cannot move on, says GK. She is going downhill, lost a lot of weight. She did not know, she says, when He and Tinnie last slept together. He is her brother and he would not have had that sort of conversation with her regarding their relationship. GK believes Tinnie has walked in on He and his girlfriend, S, catching them together, and she has told GK she will do something so He will leave S. She states Tinnie wants S to leave He – if she cannot have him, no one will. It is notable that GK was reporting those matters at a time when Mr K is suggesting he was not really in a relationship yet with Ms N. Anyway, that is all the evidence that we have from GK and it is apparent GK does not come forward to support the allegations made by the mother.
97. Additionally, of course, there is the evidence which I have already highlighted that the mother returned to the father's company voluntarily, went out of her way to return to the father's company and stayed under the same roof, even in the same bed, as him on a number of occasions following the occurrence of the alleged rapes and following the allegations of the rapes, even, as I say, at a time when it is apparent from the social work evidence that alternative accommodation was offered to her.
98. In those circumstances, it seems to me, particularly given the importance of the allegations, that the evidence does not support the making of the findings sought by the mother at numbers one to four, all of which fall into the same category.
99. Turning then to allegation number seven: that in approximately April 2011, the Respondent grabbed the Applicant by the throat, strangled her, dragged her to the floor and kicked her and the Respondent also head-butted the Applicant twice which resulted in her bleeding. The suggestion by the mother is that she attended at S's house on that occasion and discovered the father there. This was his reaction in response to being, as it were, caught almost in delicto flagrante. In support of what the mother says, there is in fact a photograph. The allegation was made to the police and the photograph appears at page F757 and shows the mother with a wound to her face and blood on her face.
100. The mother suggests that she took, as it were, the fallout of this incident, to GK 's house, and GK was aware of what she was saying about it. The father flatly denies that anything of the kind occurred and again it seems to me somewhat tellingly S, who was apparently present, as the mother suggests, has not been called to support the father in his denial of the mother's allegations. If this were a fabricated allegation, it is a little bit difficult to explain the wound to the mother's face, although the father suggests that it was received by her on a night out and is otherwise unexplained. It is also somewhat problematic why it is the mother should create in this story an element which one might expect gifted the father an easily available witness to dispute it – that is S. If the mother were making it up, it is rather odd that she would involve S as being a potential witness when clearly, if she was fabricating it, it would have been entirely unnecessary to involve S and when it might also have been expected that S would of course be able to come to the court to assist in the father's defence.
101. In addition of course, there is the issue of V's evidence and it is apparent, whether it was this incident or not, that V was clearly aware of her father being violent to her mother at a time when they lived together, resulting in the mother being wounded and bleeding.
102. For all of those reasons, it seems to me I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the mother is correct in this allegation and I find that the allegation is proved, although the evidence does not support a finding that the children were actually present at the time when the incident occurred.
103. Turning then to allegation number eight. This is that on the 2^nd June 2012, the Respondent grabbed the Applicant by the throat, spat in her face, and pinned her to the floor and threatened to kill her. This is a description given by the mother at paragraph 20 on page B19. The father flatly denies that anything of the kind occurred. The mother's description is that she was on her way to the shops which were roughly 10 minutes from the property they shared, and the Respondent had been gone all day. Just before 5.00pm she was taking the children to GK 's house – that is the father's sister – and she saw the Respondent leaving S's property. She said, 'I wasn't aware prior to this point that the Respondent had continued to have the relationship S,' so this is June 2012 and again parenthetically relates very closely to the apparent revelations made to the sexual health clinic about the sexual assaults. She said, 'The Respondent saw both me and the children and started to panic. He came over and tried to hug me and I said, "Get off," and I had to leave.' She says the Respondent then became very angry and, '…we began to argue. He grabbed me by the throat, spat in my face, pinned me to the floor. This was in front of the children and there were also people standing outside their houses watching us. I eventually managed to get away from the Respondent and went to GK 's house and the Respondent went home with the children.'
104. As I say, the Respondent flatly denies it. The point can be made that this is an environment in which I accept there were violent arguments. By analogy with my finding on the previous allegation, it is clear that there has to be some support for the mother's allegation in that she paints this picture at a time when there were clearly others who might have been brought as witnesses to dispute what she is alleging. If she were making it up, there is no reason why she should make it up in a way that sowed within it the seeds of the potential undoing of the allegation, of course including S herself, whose house the Respondent had just left when this assault occurred. None of that is available and I accept, given the character of the relationship, on the balance of probabilities the mother is telling the truth about this incident. There was an assault of this kind and the children were present when this occurred in the street.
105. Allegation number nine is that on the 27^th September, the Respondent attacked the Applicant with a knife. I have dealt in some detail with the father's version of how this panned out and, frankly, it simply does not add together. There are several versions now and in light of all that I cannot accept anything which the father says about the way in which this incident developed. His story is so confused and contradictory it creates certainly the significant suspicion that he has indeed got something to hide. What is clear is that there was an event and the mother's version of events is to some extent at least supported by Mr Hooper. Clearly she attended, for whatever reason, and was present in the father's room, or at the doorstep of the father's room. There was some kind of altercation and the father pursued the mother out of the house. I do not accept for a second that she tripped unassisted on the kitchen step, and the mother's version of events is consistent with now her contemporaneous report to the police. It is clear in my judgment that he did let her in and that they did talk and argue and that he did chase her out. In the circumstances I cannot accept his version of events and I do accept her version that at one point he picked up a knife and threatened her with it.
106. The next allegation is that at number 10, which is that the children witnessed the Respondent attacking the Applicant with a knife in the past. The character, as I have said, of this relationship I am quite clear was one of fairly high volatility and it is apparent from all the evidence I have heard that both of these parties are capable of significant anger and recrimination within the course of their arguments.
107. It is apparent, supported by such evidence as we have from GK , that this was a relationship in which there were frequent arguments and Mr K himself says so in his statement to the court. It is true also that the children, at least V, on the evidence have clearly witnessed the violence and arguments and that there have been assaults on the mother by the father witnessed at least by V on at least one occasion. In assessing the parties' evidence what cannot be ignored is the simple physical disparity between the two, the mother being comparatively small and slight and the father significantly more solidly built. However, in relation to this particular incident at number 10, there really is no additional corroboration of an incident of any kind and on that basis I cannot accept on the balance of probabilities that that allegation is proven.
108. Allegation number 11 is that the Respondent was very controlling of the Applicant throughout the relationship. In reality, there is very little evidence to support this. The volatile relationship, which I have already referred to, involved some elements of provocation and aggression it seems to me on both sides on the evidence and I certainly did not get the impression from the mother, or indeed from the evidence I have heard or seen in relation to others' assessment of the relationship over the period, that the mother was quite the wilting flower which she would have me believe. It is clear too from the Facebook entry on page D55 at least the mother herself is entirely capable of making threats and behaving as the woman scorned. I cannot ignore too the evidence from the psychiatrist that she described herself as angry, and the evidence from GK who described her as being angry and seeking some measure of revenge.
109. On the other hand there was clearly some significant level of violence in the relationship from the father towards the mother but I do not accept that the evidence supports the conclusion that this was a relationship characterised by control of the mother by the father. Indeed, it is apparent that the mother was able to make fairly significant decisions in the teeth of any opposition by the father, including leaving the area with the children to stay in Manchester for some considerable period of time when clearly the Father was concerned about them and ultimately went to fetch them and bring them back again.
110. I do not accept that the evidence supports the allegation made at number 11, that the relationship was characterised by the father being controlling throughout.
111. Turning then to the allegations the father makes which remain to be determined, that is allegations two and three. The allegation number two is that on the 28^th September, once she had him arrested, he says, erroneously for threatening her with a knife, she entered his bedroom and removed his laptop. The mother suggests it was her laptop anyway. There has been no evidence whatsoever as to the ownership of this laptop and there is no evidence the father ever complained to anybody about the theft of his laptop prior to the allegation made in these proceedings. On the evidence I have seen, the evidence comes nowhere near supporting the suggestion that the mother stole the father's laptop on this occasion.
112. The allegation number three is that the father, having been arrested for being in possession of a forged residence permit, suggests the mother in fact doctored his passport and inserted this forged document in order to get him into trouble. There is some evidence – I am not sure quite how strong it is – that the father's own sister was investigated at least for a similar offence relating to a forged 'right to remain' stamp in her passport. Of course, the father having been arrested, although ultimately not charged, as I understand it, in respect of these matters, it is very convenient for him to be able to blame the mother for having faked evidence of his guilt. There is no evidence before me as to how she could possibly have done that or how she could possibly have come about the relevant documentation, or how, if she was to acquire it, she might have paid for it. In my judgment, the evidence does not support a finding that the mother has doctored the father's passport with a view to having him arrested and I do not make that finding on the father's allegation.
113. Those are all the allegations. As I have said, I think it will be very apparent throughout this judgment I regard both of these parties as being fairly dishonest people and the relationship when they were together was clearly one characterised by violence and volatility and the evidence shows the children have been affected clearly, if for no other reason than poor V reports it to the Social Services in due course.
114. I have no idea what the consequences in the future for the children will be of their parents' relatively fluid immigration status, but that will have to be resolved. I make it plain that however dishonest I regard both these two as having been, there is no excuse for the violence which has been visited on the mother which I have found occurred and of which in my judgment the father is plainly guilty.

End of Judgment.