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England and Wales High Court (Family Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Family Division) Decisions >> DB v ZA & Ors [2010] EWHC 2175 (Fam) (19 August 2010)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2010/2175.html
Cite as: [2010] EWHC 2175 (Fam)
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FAMILY DIVISION
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
____________________
| D B |
Applicant |
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| - and - |
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| Z A -and- R A (By his Guardian Judith Bennet-Hernandez) -and- The Metropolitan Police Service -and- London Borough of Croydon |
1st Respondent 2nd Respondent Intervener Intervener |
____________________
Mr. Teertha Gupta for the Child (by his Guardian Ms. Judith Bennet-Hernandez)
Miss Anne Studd for the Metropolitan Police Service
Mrs. Gay Martin for the Local Authority
Hearing dates: 5th to 30th July 2010
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
- On 13th March 2009 DB (hereinafter referred to as "the mother") issued proceedings in Wardship pursuant to the provisions of the Senior Court Act 1981 and the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. The subject of those proceedings was her son R (whose date of birth is 25th November 2005), and the only defendant to them was R's father ZA, (hereinafter referred to as "the father").
- The factual background which led to the issue of those proceedings will be described in more detail later in this judgment, but it is sufficient at this stage to note that the mother thought that R was possibly in Iraq with his father, and the issue of proceedings in this country might secure the return of R to this jurisdiction, a jurisdiction in which R, and his parents, had predominantly lived for a number of years.
- A series of conventional orders (a location order and a collection order) were made along with various other orders and directions by a number of judges of the Division including me. In due course the father was located, but R was indeed beyond the seas, and arrangements had to be made with the assistance of the court to have him returned to this country.
- Once R was back there was a hearing before Bodey J. on 4th June 2009. That hearing was attended by Detective Inspector C of the Metropolitan Police Service (hereinafter MPS), and the MPS made clear their wish to attend the next hearing which would in part determine interim arrangements for the welfare of R. Their reasons for attendance will become clear later. Bodey J. asked CAFCASS High Court Team to represent the child pursuant to Rule 9.5 of the Family Proceedings Rules 1991. Pending that next hearing (which was to take place before me on 11th June 2009) R was to remain living with his father.
- On 11th June 2009, amongst other orders, I ordered that R remain in the interim care and control of his father, supported in the daily tasks of raising a small boy by the paternal grandmother who had brought the lad over from Iraq, and I gave directions for advancing the accumulation and distribution of evidence in this case, including local authority material, the mother's medical records, R's medical records, and information from the Home Office/U.K. Borders Agency relating to the status of the mother, father and R in this country. I further ordered that an independent adult psychiatrist should be jointly instructed by the parties to make a report as to the mother's historical and current psychiatric state. I did not allow the application of the MPS to become an intervener, although they have, with my permission, attended a number of subsequent hearings including this one as I shall in due course make clear.
- I have, over a period of 20 days, been conducting a fact-finding hearing in relation to allegations brought by this mother against this father.
- As long ago as June 2009 I directed that the mother file a Scott schedule setting out her allegations, and the first such schedule was produced in 2009. It was responded to by the father (again as directed by me). However, it seemed to me that it was a schedule over-burdened by unnecessary detail, and I required a revised Scott schedule to be filed, which in due course on 14th May 2010 it was. The father has also made a more limited number of allegations against the mother although not set out in a formal schedule. I have been conducting an inquiry into the veracity of the respective allegations.
- This is by no means a complete list of the mother's but gives some indication of their seriousness:
- What follows is not a complete list of the father's counter-allegations, but sets out the main ones;
- The burden and standard of proof are clear. Where a party makes an allegation against another, the burden of proving the allegation falls upon the person making it. The standard of proof is the balance of probabilities.
- In Re B (Children) (FC) [2008] UKHL35 their Lordships and her Ladyship Baroness Hale of Richmond considered the appropriate standard of proof in such cases following what was said to be increasing professional and judicial uncertainty as to whether Re H & R remained the law, and if it did, whether or not it needed re-consideration.
- The view of the House was unanimous. Although Lord Hoffmann gave a separate speech he, as did the other members of the Committee, agreed with Baroness Hale who said, amongst other things, that she wished to:
- The written evidence in this case, taking the form of Children Act statements with their exhibits, medical records, psychiatric records, United Kingdom Border Agency documents, police records etc. fill 15 lever-arch files.
- Many of the witnesses in this case have required the services of interpreters in Kurdish Sorani. The mother's, vetted for security purposes by the MPS, assisted the mother throughout although I have never seen her, for the mother gave evidence by video-link, the father at this time sitting with his solicitor and an interpreter in a room provided by the Mechanical Recording Service in the Royal Courts of Justice. At those times his communication with his lawyers was perforce limited to periods of adjournment (either the short adjournment or overnight), and in the event of the necessity to give urgent instructions on the mother's evidence, an arrangement was made with my consent for him to indicate to his legal team via e-mail or text messages so that they would be on notice of his request.
- During the entirety of the balance of the evidence the mother remained wholly removed from the court complex at an unknown location. She was able to hear the proceedings on a link. As the trial progressed it became clear to her legal team that she required litigation support at that location, and I am grateful, not for the first time, to the allocated person of the Legal Services Commission for extending her cover even further to provide for such litigation support to be made available to her.
- There were a number of occasions when the interpreters did not agree with each other's translations/interpretations. On these occasions I gave permission for an indication to be given to me as to the nature of the perceived defect, and if there were continuing dispute between the interpreters, I gave opportunity in the form of brief adjournments for them to resolve their conflicting views as to interpretation. I am overall, satisfied, insofar as anyone who does not speak the language in question can be, that the Article 6 rights (the European Convention for The Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950) have been maintained, and not in any way impaired by these temporary problems.
- Although until at a very late stage of the proceedings I did not know the reason for it, witnesses giving evidence to me from Iran had to do so by telephone. I was in due course informed that the Iranian Government required the issue of a licence before television images can be published internationally, even where the nature of the exercise is a court process. The giving of evidence by telephone link brings its own problems: frequent interruptions of service; uncertainty as to who else, if anyone, was in the room with the witness when they were giving their evidence; basic problems of identification; problems relating to their commenting upon documents to which they were from time-to-time referred (the court having to rely upon them being given full and clear descriptions of the necessary documents to which they were being referred); and the all-too obvious disadvantage of not being able to see the witnesses and how they comported themselves under questioning.
- The majority of the witnesses giving evidence from Iraq did so by video-ink via an international bridge. This led to further difficulties in that the visual images frequently broke up, not permitting a particularly subtle observation of each of the witnesses' comportment.
- Many of the witnesses, despite frequent and if necessary forceful adjuration from the court, gave very long answers to questions, or would not be quietened by the interpreter, and had at times to be warned by me that if they continued to give such extended answers, presenting obvious problems for the interpreters, I would no longer take their evidence. Happily, it was not necessary, in the event, to terminate any particular witness's evidence for this reason.
- Throughout the interlocutory hearings and this hearing issues of Public Interest Immunity have been rife. In addition I was invited from time-to-time by the MPS to receive at earlier hearings "closed" information about this case, particularly relating to perceived risks to the mother's safety and security of identity and accommodation. May I record at this point my gratitude to Miss Tuffuor, solicitor for the MPS, and Miss Studd, counsel for the MPS for their outstanding assistance at every stage.
- For the avoidance of doubt I made a number of rulings in relation to PII at earlier hearings, and have continued to review such material as was redacted throughout.
- In relation to the "closed" material I considered that it was both necessary and appropriate to request the help of a special advocate (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor special advocate unit). I am extremely grateful to the Attorney-General for authorising such an appointment, and to the Treasury Solicitor, and in particular the counsel instructed (Mr. Stephen Cragg) for their invaluable assistance.
- In consequence of that appointment, frequent discussions took place between the MPS and the special advocate resulting in much material hitherto redacted being made available to the parties within the forensic arena. Very little remained redacted, and the bulk of that relates to issues such as the current and historical identity of the mother, her location from time-to-time, police methods, and such material as was relevant to perceived risk to life or limb of any individual concerned in the enquiry.
- In the end, given the extensive disclosure ultimately agreed (I not having to make substantive rulings once the special advocate was in post in "closed" mode) there was also, in effect, no "closed" material and the issues of disclosure have been considered on conventional PII principles. Thus where material was redacted in the public interest I have not considered it.
- The MPS take the allegations of threats of "honour killing" brought by the mother sufficiently seriously to have arranged for her voluntary admission into a secret programme designed to protect her. For a variety of reasons, many to do with her own behaviour, she has had to be moved from one safe house to another on many occasions. Her identity has been changed on a number of occasions. To some extent her appearance has changed by her own wish. I shall consider this part of the story again later, (see "Osman Warnings" referred to in paragraphs 288 to 327 below).
- She leads a life of secrecy, and is in hiding, although, as I shall relate below, she does at times put herself at significant risk by breaking her cover, sometimes deliberately. The Kurdish community in the United Kingdom is a small one in its cohesion despite geographical distances. Thus, the mother is, for the most part, severed from her former national community, and lives a socially and culturally isolated life. She is lonely, although she has begun the process of educating herself so that she may, in due course, seek employment, and thus gain access to a different community from her ethnic one. At the moment she is severely hampered by being illiterate in both Kurdish and English, and although her English is improving beyond all expectations given that she spoke none in 2005, she needs the services, as have been provided to her by the MPS throughout these proceedings, of a Kurdish Sorani speaker. I was surprised, given that her written statements make much of her inability to speak English, that she wished to give evidence in that language. She did so for the most part with an obviously high level of comprehension, only rarely calling upon the interpreter to aid her.
- The view of the MPS as to the seriousness with which the mother's allegations should be taken is heightened because, in this case, as is well-known to all of the parties, and is known on a national level from newspaper and broadcast recordings of approximately some four years ago, a cousin of both this mother and this father (BM) was the subject of an act or acts of rape and then an "honour killing" by her brother and her father who were convicted of murder in 2007. The father, and a number of his supporting witnesses, take umbrage with the MPS approach to the death of BM, and what they assert is a bald exercise in prejudice by the MPS in assuming that, because BM was murdered in this way, the father and/or others would likewise subscribe to the view that an "honour killing" was acceptable. A member of the MPS (see below for more detail of this witness' part) did state unequivocally in his oral evidence that the MPS had no specific evidence to link the father, or his near family, to the killing of BM, but could not in carrying out their risk assessment ignore the connection. The MPS has also carried out a wider risk assessment in respect of events which, they say, suggests that there is a risk of a high order to the mother – again, see "Osman Warnings" – paragraphs 288 - 327 below.
- The mother is said by herself to have been born on 10th March 1982, although her passport apparently indicates a date of birth of 31st February 1976. Quite what the reason is for this disparity was not ostensibly revealed until the mother's statement of May 2010 gave her version accounting for the difference. She holds firmly to the 10th March 1982 as the day of her birth, making her now 28. She says that she was instructed by the father to give as her date of birth the 31st May 1976 because it was more consistent with the information he had long since provided to the United Kingdom authorities in pursuit of his asylum claim in the year 2000 (see paragraphs 34 - 37 below). She points to an "Identity Certificate" issued by the Ministry of The Interior in the Islamic Republic of Iran on about 23rd January 2008 (see volume 1 C9). That document also asserts that the parties married on 23rd June 1998, when in fact, as is agreed by them, they married in April 2004. She says that the wrong date of birth was given to the compiler of that document so that the impression would be created that she was 22 years old at the time of her marriage, whereas, if her true date of birth had been given, she would only have been 16 years old on that purported, but erroneous, date of marriage. She was wholly unaware of these changes until the father informed her of them in the course of a telephone call following their marriage (he by now being back in England, and she having to obtain an entry visa for the United Kingdom). She alleges that he further told her that he had paid a great deal of money for the change of her birth date to be effected on her Iranian identity documents.
- In the father's statement of 10th June 2010 he gives his entirely different version of this. He denies that she was born in 1982, saying that she must have been born in or prior to 1979, although he does not know her exact date of birth. He certainly does not think she was born in 1976 either, because he believes her to be approximately 2 – 3 years younger than himself. He produces a photograph purportedly showing them side-by-side when youngsters to support this. In her oral evidence the mother identified the three sitters in this picture. She was the smallest; one of her older brothers was standing next to her, and one of the father's younger brothers next to him. The father made no appearance in it. I accept her evidence on this point.
- The father also speaks of "major problems in obtaining the appropriate identification documentation to support the Mother's visa application to travel to the U.K.", and reference to differences between the Iranian calendar and the Gregorian calendar, and also posits that there may have been a mistake in translation from one document to another, or that, as so often happens in rural villages, her date of birth was not registered until some time after it had actually happened. He also gave oral evidence on this issue to the following effect:
- Having listened to the oral evidence on this subject I shall give my finding below in paragraph 37, for this issue is inextricably linked to the immigration/asylum application of the father in 2000.
- She says the father's date of birth is 2nd April 1968. There is a further difference of view as between the mother and the father concerning this. He says that he was born in 1976, although his own first statement in these proceedings asserts he was born on 1st January 1970. He adds in Delphic fashion that "this is because all of the documentation states this" (concerning, I now believe, his asylum application, although no documentation of significance in that matter is available for scrutiny). He did not amend in his second Children Act statement what he now says is a mistake, and adds that the misunderstanding may have arisen when his last solicitor read him that statement (containing what he now says is the above error) without the use of an interpreter. Whilst his United Kingdom passport gives 1st January 1970 as his date of birth, he wonders if, in common with many immigrants on arriving in the country, there was a mis-recording of his date of birth because he did not speak English well. He is seeking an Iraqi birth certificate. Even at the time of the making of this recent second statement he does not give a specific date in 1976. No such documentation has been produced.
- Having heard oral evidence on this subject see paragraph 37 below for my finding.
- The father, who had claimed asylum in this country, had on the 24th day of May 2000 been given leave to remain permanently in the jurisdiction. Notification of his grant of asylum status was made by letter on 4th June 2000, the status of a refugee was afforded to him, that status being recognised under the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the status of refugees as set out in its 1967 protocol. As I understand the evidence, his claim to that status was based on, amongst other things, fear for his health, safety and indeed life should he remain in Iraq by virtue of the then political climate. I note, however, that for a number of years he has gone backwards and forwards to Iraq and Iran, perhaps giving rise to the suspicion that his fears for his safety and life were not as high as he might have led the U.K. Border Agency to believe initially. However, such comings and goings may simply be attributable to the existence of a new political regime, and a significant diminishment in the risks to him from such travel. When being cross-examined about this issue he said, amongst other things, "I wanted to come here for a better life". This may well suggest to a cynical observer that he was an economic migrant of some sort. I remind myself at this point of the problems of selective credibility – see paragraph 115 below relating to "Lucas Warnings".
- In the course of his oral evidence he gave me two further and different accounts of how it came about that he had told the English authorities when seeking asylum that he was married. Common to those two accounts was that he had an interpreter at the time who did not speak his dialect. In his first version he went on to say that, despite the difficulties of language, he had been advised by that interpreter, who purported to have assisted in many such applications, that he should lie as to his marital status for reasons the father could not now recollect nor explain. In the second version he said that such were the language problems between himself and the interpreter that the latter must have made up the whole account himself, for the father did not know of this lie. I need not set out in further elaborate detail the nature of his oral evidence on this subject. It is sufficient to record that I did not believe a word of any of his accounts save that he may have been advised by the interpreter to lie about this subject, but in any event he did so voluntarily to mislead the English authorities, quite clear in his own mind that he was, for tactical reasons, so lying.
- These lies in his asylum claim lend credence, in my judgment, to the account of the mother that she was deliberately fed false documentation by the father which he had had created at his own expense in Iraq in order to support the bogus claim that he had been married prior to his asylum application, and that this was indeed the relevant wife referred to in that application. Furthermore, for such a bogus account to be valid, he had to create a false impression of her age, as well as his own. I accept her evidence on this subject.
- I have no doubt at all that he was behind all of this scheming and false material. Since no-one is able to produce any valid Iranian document (or Iraqi document come to that) providing proper evidence of their respective dates of birth, I have no idea how old they are. Having, however, accepted the mother's evidence on the subject of the false attributions of identity put forward by the father in relation to the photographs mentioned above, I am more inclined to accept her evidence over his that there is a comparatively significant age difference between them.
- Following their marriage the father returned to England, and it is suggested by the mother that the father applied for a spousal visa on her behalf. The father asserts that it was the mother (and her brother J) who made this application in Iran. Accordingly, he says, any errors or lies in the application should be attributed to her. Following the period when she perforce had to continue living in Iran pending the grant of immigration status, she was given a spousal visa on 22nd February 2005, but only for a period of two years. During his cross-examination the father frequently emphasised that he had nothing to do with this application; had no idea what details she had provided to the authorities in Tehran; and assumed, as he asserted many in his community do, that once she had a visa it was for unlimited leave to remain. He claims never to have asked her the period of her visa, and never to have looked at her passport, even though on his own evidence it was kept in a box to which both had access at their flat in Croydon. I did not believe a word of his account on this subject. She later acquired indefinite leave to remain, as I shall set out below in paragraphs 267 - 269.
- As is clear from my findings above in relation to documentation and the father's immigration status, it follows that any lies made in her application for her first visa (the Tehran United Kingdom Embassy being approached to effect this document) were knowingly deployed by her, for she makes no secret of the fact that she thinks they were being given wrong information, but she proffered it to them on the basis, at a minimum, of collusion with the father, and on the basis of wholly inaccurate documents, as she knew them to be, unlawfully obtained by him. In making this finding I have taken account of the fact that she was then illiterate. She nevertheless was supported throughout the application by her brother J, who is not. At the very least he could be expected to draw these woeful anomalies to her attention before committing them to paper on her behalf. In making that finding I have also taken into account that this is essentially a culture where the men are in charge of official matters, but it stretches the bounds of credulity to assume that J would not have raised with his sister the fact of proffering the birth certificate and a marriage certificate both bearing demonstrably false dates.
- He is one of six children, being the third-born. Two of his brothers, to whom he says he is close, live in the United Kingdom and his three other siblings in Iraq. The mother, in her most recent statement, says that, of the two brothers living in the United Kingdom, the father did not speak to one (A) for very many years. I prefer her account to his on this point. However, they must have been reconciled before she arrived here in 2005 for the couple visited him and his wife (F) the day of the mother's arrival here.
- His own father has been a businessman, and subsequently a mediator (1991 – 1995). He prays this in aid of his general evidence of denial of using more primitive means of resolving disputes, asserting that his father, given his specific training and practice as a mediator, and the wide respect in which he is held in consequence, would not dream of indulging in such methods.
- Because of the domestic political circumstances in Iraq his parents lost many of their assets, although there has been some resurgence of fortune in the "boom" conditions following the second Iraq war. The financial constraints meant there was insufficient money to pursue tertiary education in his case, and my understanding is that only his younger sister has a university degree.
- He refers to his political activities (described at some length) during high school and the years subsequent to leaving it, and the consequential political trouble in which he found himself with the Iraqi authorities, including, at times, imprisonment and torture. He designates his activities at that time as "intelligence gathering rather than … physical force", once again seeking to distance himself from the taint of physical violence.
- His family is Kurdish by culture and by religion Moslem, though it is "quite secular", and although he told me he believes in God he has never been a "traditional Moslem". He, like other members of his family (save for his mother who is devout and observant) who are witnesses in this case, are at pains to emphasise this aspect of their lives and to distance themselves from any part of their society and/or culture which takes the law into its own hands and carries out "honour killings". Indeed, he took elaborate pains in his oral evidence to persuade me that he regarded physical violence as abhorrent, and that whilst he recognised that some of his tribe (numbering approximately 20, 000) did indeed subscribe to the old views about honour killing and the use of violence generally, he was now living in the United Kingdom, and that this was the 21st century, and that the use of violence was alien to him. I watched him carefully during this evidence and thought he was taking exquisite care to modulate his voice to the gentlest of whispers in order to prop-up the impression he was trying to give of his attitude to physical force.
- As with so much of the material in this case, the above account is subject to very significant challenge by the mother and her immediate family. In particular, an attack was made on the suggestion that the paternal grandfather is in any sense (either formally or informally) a mediator. If the mother's account is to be believed, that man is utterly traditional (misogynist, controlling and brutal) in his way of behaving towards women, and is as violent as the father. See below for more detail including allegations that the paternal grandfather not only carries two hand guns, but uses them to threaten others.
- The mother and her own family emphasise, in general, that in terms of its way of living, the father's family is as rooted in cultural tradition (including that part of tradition which endorses "honour killings") as it ever was. Quite separate from the complaints of the mother, the maternal grandmother makes very specific allegations against, in particular, the paternal grandfather, but also other males in that family, in relation to death threats both to her and her daughter, both at the time of the separation of the mother and father and subsequently. I shall say more of this later.
- The political activities of the father are not the subject of significant comment by the mother and, for my part, I have found it wholly unnecessary to investigate this aspect of his history. I have, as is by now clear, concluded that he is a wholly unreliable historian in relation to a very significant part of his claim for asylum. Whilst I am accordingly suspicious as to his account of his activities in Iran/Iraq as a justification for asylum, I can do no more than record that suspicion. Since it is suspicion and does not achieve the necessary standard of proof to qualify as a probability I shall put that aspect of the matter firmly out of my mind. I note however, in the oral evidence of his maternal uncle (AB), himself an asylum seeker when arriving in the United Kingdom in 2003, he said without irony "well everyone claims asylum".
- As for whether or not that family, or any part of it, indulges in "honour killings" or the threat of them, that is the subject, in part, of this enquiry (see paragraphs 270 - 281 below for my findings).
- The father emphasises that the mother's family came from a significantly more traditional background. For example, the maternal grandmother entered into an arranged marriage, although he acknowledges that it was her choice so to do. He asserts that the mother's family lives in a "less advanced economy" (Iran) and that they live by comparatively traditional mores in a rather backward village, with access to a less sophisticated education than his own.
- It is certainly accepted by the mother and her own relatives that their lives in an Iranian village were simpler and probably harder than that of the father and his family in Iraq. The village in which they live, which once had some 15 families in it is now down to three, although the father's family evidence says only two, and is supplemented by a workforce of outsiders who do manual work. There was no access to education for young women there. Following the oral evidence of in particular the maternal grandfather, I was left with some slight hesitation as to this picture. The maternal grandfather told me that the only reason his daughter did not go to school was because the maternal grandmother had had an operation and was unwell, and inferentially that the mother, as an only daughter, was required to stay at home and look after her. I accept that evidence. Neither the grandmother, nor the mother, nor indeed any of their other female relatives (save the youngest of the new generation) has had any basic schooling let alone higher education. The father, in his oral evidence, (the suggestion never having appeared anywhere in the paper material, nor in any aspect of the oral evidence prior to his, including cross-examination of the mother on his behalf) told me that she could read and write in a very simple way in her own language, having learned that at home. He went on to produce a number of sheets of paper showing how the mother had been able to write in Kurdish Sorani and then, once enrolled at an English language academy on arrival in the United Kingdom, she had learned basic translations of the words and a few phrases. Given the lateness of the production of these documents I have no way of knowing whether the Kurdish Sorani words were indeed written out by the mother as part of her exercises. My overall conclusion on this narrow aspect is that in all probability the mother was indeed truly illiterate in her own language.
- There is very little by way of medical and/or psychiatric provision in that region – see "The Mother's Psychiatric History" below for the relevance of this. A person in need of such would probably have to travel to Tehran.
- In her May 2010 statement the mother describes coming from "a very orthodox Moslem background". She too expresses a belief in God, but is not herself religiously observant. She speaks of being part of a household where the males can, in effect, do no wrong. They govern all that goes on in the house. Women have no rights. Strict conformity to "this cultural model" is required. She was uneducated whilst her brothers were schooled. She was barely allowed out of the home to mix in the local area, and not being schooled had no chance to forge friendships there. She alleges that her mother was the victim of the same autocratic methods within the household, and could not interfere when her father and her brothers required her to behave in a certain way.
- She says that she was, at times, locked in her room, she was shouted at and beaten, particularly, but not exclusively by her own father. Her brother H, who has given oral evidence by video-link, and her brother K, along with her father, who both gave oral evidence by audio-link, were at pains when cross-examined to deny each and every one of the mother's allegations against the men in her family. Her overall response to such a denial (clear from her written and extensive oral evidence) is that in effect 'men rule' in that culture, and brook no opposition.
- In making this last point she is supported, perhaps unwittingly, by her brother H. He makes it clear, particularly for example in relation to whether or not there had been or should be a divorce between the mother and father that whatever her views may have been as to the continuation of her marriage, she was to obey the men in her family even if to do so was profoundly against her wishes and her will.
- I also heard oral evidence from the maternal grandmother. She, like her husband and sons, denied that there were any real problems in the family, and certainly did not accept the allegations made by the mother that she was the recipient of bad treatment from the men. She did, however, accept that the mother was at times a lonely girl, and that at times she was angry about her fate. I have no doubt her life was not at all happy as a child, and that even though at times, as the only girl, she may have been modestly indulged, overall it was a harsh life for her, that she was indeed beaten, and that she was made aware from a very early age that, culturally, she must follow the dictates of the men. Despite the men's denials, and her own mother's denial, I have no doubt at all that this young woman was, as a child, treated in the way she describes, even to the extent of receiving beatings from both her father and her brothers. The attempt by her family to create the impression that all was sweetness and light was not, in my judgment, established.
- There are, as in any case, fragments of material which go both ways in trying to assess the evidence and come to any finding. Mrs. Crowley Q.C. (leading counsel for the father) points, by way of example, to a note of a telephone call between the mother and her own father, although I am not clear as to the date of it. There is an English manuscript note of that telephone call at volume 15 pages 26 – 27, and 28 – 36. The tone of the father and of his daughter is, for the most part, affectionate and concerned, and it is thus submitted that anything the mother says to the detriment of her own father, either concerning his historical behaviour of more recent behaviour, is to be regarded with considerable suspicion when she seeks to denigrate him. Yet elsewhere in the documentation is a report of the mother saying to a professional that she was pleased that, by virtue of her marriage, she had escaped both Iran and her father. It is of note, I consider, that she isolated him in particular rather than simply referring to her family in general, or her father and brothers. Having considered the counter-submissions made on behalf of the father I nevertheless hold to the finding recorded above.
- She refers also to a culture in which nothing is seen as being wrong in "killing a human being in order to restore their 'so-called' family honour", and illustrates this by reference to BM who, as I have already noted, was murdered by members of BM's family after they felt she had brought dishonour upon that family's name. As I have made clear earlier, the father attempted to distance himself and his entire family from the shocking killing of BM. Such was his distaste for this tragedy that he found it difficult if not impossible to even speak of it.
- She has said that her duty to, and place within, her family required her, whatever her own wishes in the matter, to enter a marriage which they had chosen for her. This pressure did not only come from her own family but also from the father's (see paragraph 72 for my findings).
- I was told by both leading counsel in the course of the evidence that it was agreed that there are three stages to a traditional wedding in their culture. The first is an engagement celebration. The second is the formal ceremony presided over by a mullah, that being part and parcel of the Nikkah dinner/party. The third part takes the form of the bride being received into the home of the groom. It is only after that stage that a bride and groom may sleep together and have sexual intercourse. The mother explained one aspect of this tradition to me in clear terms: if the couple sleep together before that last stage of entry into the home of the father, and then for some reason that last part of the proceedings does not occur, she will be unmarriageable, for she would not be a virgin. In this case she gave, as an example, the possibility that after the Nikkah the father might have returned to England and failed thereafter to take her into his home. She would, in their cultural tradition, not be re-admitted to her own family either. In other words she would be lost. This has relevance for some of the material I heard in this case relating the period following the Nikkah dinner and the consummation of their marriage, (see paragraphs 75 to 81 below). This account of hers was supported by a number of witnesses from both sides of the family: but I emphasise that it does reflect the traditional approach, and not necessarily represent the practice in all households in that part of the world. It was the evidence of the paternal grandfather that from about 1985 onwards the stages were an engagement party (attended by the mullah), a signing of the legal register, followed by the entry into the father's home and consummation. He did, in cross-examination, agree that in this case the father's home for these purposes was unquestionably the flat in Croydon.
- It was therefore something of a surprise to me that in the father's oral evidence he gave the following account of these three stages, telling me that the engagement was the first step presided over by the Mullah (he agreeing with his father), followed by a celebratory party, and the third stage, entry into the father's home, which would be satisfied by entry of the home of the father's family (in Iraq). It was his evidence that he felt so familiar with and comfortable in the home of one of his paternal aunts that he and his wife had consummated their marriage there, and had not even waited until they arrived at his own parents' home. I prefer the evidence of the mother, his sister (HMAAA), aunt (NAA) and the paternal grandfather and others as to the third stage, and find that the father was lying to me in order to give credence to his account of the consummation of the marriage rather than accept the mother's account (see paragraphs 75 to 81 below).
- She told me that the father had promised her that the three formal steps would take place. I accept her evidence on this point. In the end, despite all his promises at the telephone (see paragraph 64 below) he had persuaded her that they should have the engagement party on the same day as the Nikkah dinner. The father told me that in contemporary Kurdistan it is sometimes the case that the two, or even three, steps required to create a marriage take place on the same day. I am inclined to accept that evidence as a general proposition, although I do not renege from my finding above that that was not the arrangement this couple had come to in advance.
- It is now the mother's case that the marriage was an arranged one, she being betrothed as a child to the father who is, as I noted above, a maternal cousin. In this she was supported by her own mother's testimony to the effect that the mother's father and the father's father had, when the children were young, promised each off-spring in marriage to each other. Although both in print and orally, the maternal grandmother of R made it clear that she did not regard this as a good marriage, she said that her own husband always stuck by a bargain once made. Thus, whatever the reservations held by the maternal grandmother, the mother was to marry the father come what may.
- As to whether or not it was an arranged one, the father describes a period in about 1981 when the mother and her family came to live with his family in Iran following the fall of the Shah and the repression alleged to have taken place under Ayatollah Khomeini (this part is agreed). He says that it was during this period (when they were both children) that there was a "so-called 'agreement'" as to the future marriage between this husband and this wife. He attributes "the arrangement" to a romantic notion on the part of the maternal grandmother that the two small children would marry when of sufficient age. Whilst it may have been a genuine wish on the grandmother's part, it was treated as a 'bit of a joke' by his own family who do not support arranged marriages.
- The mother and father had very little contact with each other after those childhood days. The father speaks of a brief visit in 1991 where he spent most of the time with his own mother' family rather than with this shy young girl. He returned again in 1994/5, but again only staying for three nights. He does, however, describe being rather taken with her: she was pretty, polite and sweet. He thinks she was in her mid-teens at that time. The third time he saw her, prior to the marriage, was in 1998 when he was in his early 20's. He spent two nights in the neighbourhood seeing quite a lot of the mother and her family. They then spoke at the telephone on a number of occasions between that visit and the marriage in 2004, and in the course of 2003 there was a significant increase in such calls, in the course of which she was asking questions of him about his life in England. He reports telling her that he did not have much money, and was living in bed and breakfast accommodation. As time went on she began to speak of marriage, and how she would like to get married, wanting him for her husband. She emphasised she sought nothing material from him. He thought her "extremely charming when she makes an effort. She is also, I feel now, a consummate actress". Is she?
- He went to Iran in 2004, travelling via Iraq. He wanted to test whether or not it would be possible to have a relationship with her, and describes feeling rather pressured by her family to take formal steps. He says there was a very warm welcome awaiting him in Iran, and he describes discussions between himself and her about his life, he showing her photographs of his newly-acquired flat (local authority tenancy). In her oral evidence the mother gave a very vivid account of the sort of photographs she had been shown, which were of a very substantial house with an attractive garden. She has no idea now what she was being shown, but it was unquestionably not the accommodation to which she was taken on arrival in England. I accept her evidence on this. Was this trick by the father just a man bragging about his worldly wealth in the sure and certain knowledge that it would not be questioned, and that even when his wife discovered the reality she would not report back the sorry reality? Or was there some other reason? If there was, I could not fathom it, but have come to the clear conclusion that on this subject of the photographs he was lying to me. In retrospect, he acknowledges that he might have done more to prepare her better for the huge differences in the way of living between her childhood and adolescence and her future life (once marriage was agreed) in England.
- He told me he made up his mind that he wished to marry her, they having a mutual attraction and he believed genuine fondness for each other. Both families gave their blessing, but he emphasises that this was not an arranged marriage, nor a "long-standing contract".
- He specifically denies that the marriage was imposed upon her at the last moment by her father following pressure from his family. I believe the account of the mother and her own mother, having no doubt at all that the mother faced considerable familial pressure to marry the father, but that did not necessarily mean that she was unhappy that it should occur.
- He says the formal engagement party/Nikkah dinner referred to above was arranged after acceptance by her family of the proposal, and indeed members of his own family came, including two of his brothers, his sister and his mother, and various aunts. The mother took a significant part in planning the celebrations many details of which had been organised in the preceding months, he agreeing them over the telephone, and that she was very excited about it. There seems to me to be some consensus that there were perhaps quite a small number of people at the engagement party in the morning, amounting to perhaps no more than 20 – 30 people. Even if I am wrong about that it matters little. The evening party strikes me as an altogether more significant affair, although not as elaborate as the mother had been led to believe it would be. I cannot guess at how many people attended, but it was certainly larger than the morning group. Whilst all the arrangements were made by her family he paid for it. He describes the nature of the celebration and orally told me it was where he gave the mother rings and jewellery. He produces a selection of photographs of the day showing, he says, the happiness of the mother at this event. This all took place in Iran in April 2004.
- A number of his witnesses speak of travelling to Iran for the engagement/Nikkah party, and describe it in some detail. They all make clear that the mother appeared very happy to be the subject of so much attention, and happy in her marriage to this man. She was showing off (says one witness) the fact that she was marrying a man who lived in London. There are descriptions of her looking happy throughout the day, and indeed the days thereafter.
- This is not consistent with the mother's account in her recent lengthy affidavit, although there are many inconsistencies in her presentation of this period, and in her oral evidence. I shall only summarise this part of her version of events. She felt under enormous pressure to enter into a marriage both from her own family and from his as I have found to be the case. She says that the formal proposal (as opposed to the much earlier "agreement") was in fact made in about February 2004 by the father's mother and his brother the father being abroad, although it followed on from that "agreement" made when she was a child. That proposal was accepted by her own family, and the ceremony described above took place only two months later.
- Returning to her own family's response to this marriage she states that her mother was not happy about it (see above for my findings accepting this evidence), but that her father would not listen to objection and the marriage went ahead.
- At the above ceremony there was, she says, a great deal of pressure placed on her by both families to appear to be happy and enjoying the occasion. This "happiness" is said by the father to be manifest in the photographs and a video of the day. The mother says she was very sad and unhappy. One of the inconsistencies in her account of this period is that when carefully cross-examined by Mrs. Crowley she seemed to me to be accepting that she was trusting of her husband, after the numerous affectionate telephone calls described above, and was persuaded that he was indeed something of a romantic, and that she was pleased to be escaping her birth family who, with the exception of her mother in the immediate household and a number of female relatives more distantly located in the village, treated her very badly. Thus, despite her assertion that she was in effect forced to look happy, it seemed to me that overall her oral evidence described above is the more accurate picture, and that those attending the celebration would be entitled to take away the impression that she was a happy enough bride. I have found this part of the evidence particularly nuanced, and the oral evidence of the mother invaluable in coming to my conclusions. I have no doubt this was an agreed marriage in the sense described above, that she faced pressure to go through with it, but that overall she was persuaded that it was no bad thing to enter into it and was reasonably happy to do so, as noted above escaping Iran and her father in the process. I find her attempt to portray it much more darkly as a young woman entering a marriage wholly against her will to be a re-writing of history in order to create a bleak picture of herself as a victim. The reality, I find, is much more complex than that, although I also make it clear that I find that had she changed her mind at the last minute and announced that she was not going through with the marriage, I have no doubt at all that the men on both sides of the family would have refused to respect that autonomy, and that she would at best be forced into the marriage, and at worst a graver fate would have befallen her. Whether or not that darker fate would include her death must abide my findings on the subject of death threats, and their potential for being carried out. I have to add a cautionary note: having looked at the photographs produced by the father, I see for the most part a very solemn face when looking at her.
- There is one aspect of the evidence relating to the marriage which has never really been investigated fully. Although it comes out of chronological sequence I mention it at this point. I have described above the wedding carried out in conformity with one version of cultural and religious tradition. Some weeks after the wedding and the period which followed it (see immediately below) the father returned to England, but had, allegedly to his irritation, to return to Iran to sign a document relating to the marriage necessary for the purposes of obtaining a visa for his wife. It is not clear to me, the document never having been produced, whether this was a signing of the register (see the reference in paragraph 59 above), and/or was a separate civil ceremony. Whichever of the two, it is clear that it was a formal part of the administrative process of getting married (even if only the signing of a register) and thus this couple were married not only in religious law but also in civil law. That there are some such formalities in Iran is made clear by a reference in one of the earlier Iranian official documents to which I have referred (1:C:9) where there is an entry relating to the registration number of the bogus marriage relating to his asylum claim at the Notary Public's office.
- There is dispute between the parties as to whether or not there has been a Talaq as between the mother and the father. There is no reference by either of them as to a civil dissolution of the marriage. I asked counsel if there were any illumination in the documentation, and no-one knew the answer to this question. It follows, however, that there is a distinct possibility that, even if I were to find that the father had pronounced a Talaq, that may not have dissolved the marriage between them, unless Iranian law provides for the pronouncement of a Talaq to achieve, without more, that end.
- It is his account that, during the three to four week period following their wedding day, they visited many of his relatives in Iraq, some of whom she had not seen since her childhood days in that country. She met his friends. There was a significant round of socialising, with meals and picnics etc. She seemed "very excited and happy", and he was very pleased, thinking he had made the right decision to marry.
- It is the mother's case that the marriage was not consummated until after her arrival in the United Kingdom. She describes the consummation as a violent episode involving anal and vaginal rape and considerable brutality on the part of the father. Such was his unbridled sexual appetite that she was taken many times during the night. Unhappily, a number of her accounts give different periods after the marriage before the commencement of this allegedly brutal behaviour. For example, in her Criminal Justice Act section 9 statement dated 27th February 2008, made when she had the advantage of an interpreter, she stated that the father had been very nice to her for the first three months of the marriage. To a doctor she has suggested the period was four months. In a further statement in these proceedings dated 8th April 2009 she said that he was nice to her for a week. In her statement of May 2010 she suggests he was nice to her for a period of three days. It was never clarified whether these periods followed the marriage ceremonies in April 2004, or related to the period once she had arrived in the United Kingdom in 2005. He has certainly said to have been unhappy some few months after the marriage ceremonies when he had, unexpectedly, to fly to Tehran to sign the document referred to in paragraph 59 above, but there is no suggestion that he had been truly unpleasant to her in the period up to her arrival in February 2005. Do these varying accounts undermine her credibility on the issue of the commencement of allegedly brutal behaviour?
- The father's account was that en route to Iraq from the engagement party/Nikkah in Iraq, they spent the night with an aunt (M), and following a family meal, slept on the roof of her house and there consummated the marriage. It was a romantic occasion of a gentle and loving nature. Later in that journey they spent another night with other relatives and again had consensual loving sexual relations. It is this relative's house in which he says he felt so relaxed that he regarded it as a suitable home to be considered as the equivalent of bringing his wife to his own home so that he could fulfil the third part of the necessary requirements of marriage
- One of his own witnesses (his aunt NAA) talks of a visit the couple made to her about 10 days after the engagement/Nikkah. Clearly, on her own account, if she is accurate, nothing was said to her about the couple already having consummated the marriage, and no request was made for them to be given quarters, and accordingly, following custom, they did not sleep in the same room for it would have been culturally and religiously inappropriate for them to do so. It was only in his oral testimony, the mother not having been cross-examined to this effect, that he gave evidence that there were two other families staying at this aunt's home, they only had one air-conditioning machine, and that for this logistical reason only it was both not possible, and rather indelicate even if possible, for the couple to have withdrawn to their own quarters and had further sexual relations.
- Although no other witness speaks of this (including her daughter HA who gave oral evidence), the aunt (NAA) makes certain comments about the behaviour of the mother during the few days spent with them in 2004 as they were en route to his parents' home. She says the mother was much more lively than when she had been in Iran, visibly showing her love for her husband, and speaking of it. I accept this evidence. It is consistent with her being happy to escape Iran. She describes intimate public behaviour by the mother, for example taking off the father's socks, kissing his feet and massaging his legs. She says "we found this display of affection a bit odd but we did not really say much". They privately clearly rather disapproved of it is the impression I am being asked to accept, and she says "we would not have shown affection in this way, especially not as the marriage had not yet taken place". In her oral evidence the mother absolutely denied showing affectionate behaviour in this way. She regards the example given by the aunt of showing intimate behaviour in public to be a figment of NAA's imagination. I accept the evidence of NAA on this point. Once again the mother is re-writing history. It appears that this witness (NAA), in common with some of the others (see above), is of the view that there had been an engagement party and Nikkah dinner but no more. The marriage was yet to take place once there was a formal entry into the father's home. She is quite clearly of the view that there should have been no consummation prior to that last event. Had there been a consummation at the couple's stay with aunt M, the mother would not be the first young woman to have engaged in intimate sexual behaviour including full sexual intercourse with her husband, even though protocol prohibited it, a point properly made by Mrs. Crowley. Had she though?
- The father says that when at his parents' home the mother was not comfortable for them to sleep together under the same roof as his parents, however, after a short period, they did share a room, although he does not assert further occasions of intercourse in this period. This evidence of his, if true, strikes me as an oddity, for if she were willing to have sexual relations in his aunt's house in the romantic fashion he describes, it is odd that they were not presenting to his parents initially as a married couple once they had entered that home.
- Having considered all of the evidence (both written and oral) I have come to the clear conclusion that there was indeed no consummation prior to the arrival in the United Kingdom. There would be no question of a consummation taking place in Iran by virtue of the much more traditional approach of the mother's family. The overwhelming weight of evidence, I find, is against the father on this subject, bearing in mind in particular his own family's rejection of his evidence that entering into the familiar home of his aunt on arrival in Iraq was sufficient to satisfy the traditional rules prevalent even in his family in Iraq.
- There is, once again, a flat contradiction between the accounts of the mother and the father as to their arrival in the U.K. For example, in her ABE interviews, the mother says that the flat was in a shocking state, dirty, without furniture, and with only primitive bedding thrown on the floor. She describes being the unconsenting victim of repeated acts of rape, buggery and oral sex.
- His account suggests the contrary: whilst he accepts that the flat was small, he had tidied it, put flowers around for her, and that he had a king-size bed in the bedroom. He produced photographs to me to support this. There was clean bed linen, etc. The sitting room was suitably furnished. There was fruit and food stuffs in the refrigerator. She counters by suggesting that these photographs are of a much later period after she had made the flat clean (asserting that that job took her up to a month) and that the furniture came later. In a particularly compelling passage of the oral evidence she described to me what it felt like to be pregnant and sleeping on a hard floor with three thin blankets. She described how she would wake in the night and feel constrained in moving, partly by virtue of the pregnancy and partly by not wishing to wake him. She was distressed by the recollection of what she thought she might be doing to her unborn baby by lying in this way. I accept that evidence, and thus I find it follows that I prefer her version of the basic condition of the flat to his, even though I think she exaggerates a little as to the dirtiness of it. Once again the father's credibility is damaged. Was he just being prideful in relation to worldly goods, or does this further finding that he is an incredible witness infect other parts of his testimony?
- It is his recollection that on the first night, having first visited his elder brother (A) and his wife (F), she undressed herself and he describes a time of consensual and affectionate behaviour, though falling short of sexual intercourse because they were both extremely tired after the journey.
- He gives an account of behaviour which she is said to have found surprising: not only had he arranged the flat in the way described above, on their first morning together he cooked her breakfast, was attentive to her, etc. Later that day he ran her a bath, putting tea lights around the bath and petals on the water although her reaction was unenthusiastic to this and far from romantic. His account continues, entirely contrary to hers, in this vein of mutual pleasure and enjoyment over many days and weeks. She wholly rejects this account, by way of illustration pointing out that it is unheard of in her culture to have breakfast in bed, let alone for the man of the house to prepare it.
- It is his evidence that in the week after arrival in the U.K. they had intercourse only some four or five times but devoted themselves instead essentially to visiting his friends and relatives, and in introducing her to the neighbourhood. Following that period it is his recollection that they had sexual intercourse of an entirely conventional and affectionate nature on approximately two to three occasions per week. They never had intercourse more than once in any one evening. Once the pregnancy with R was at the six-month stage they ceased, and did not re-commence having intercourse for two months after the removal of her stitches. In other words he presents himself as a model of tender consideration.
- The above is in total contradistinction to the mother's accounts of their sex life in which she describes herself as being victimised and the subject of brutal attention on every occasion. She is, I fear, once again an hopeless historian on the subject of frequency of sexual activity. In her ABE interviews she spoke of periods of many hours of sexual activity, with the husband having many ejaculations in the course of any one period. The nature of their sexual behaviour together (as alleged by her) is set out below. But at this point I simply note that her evidence to me was that he was frequently cruel, and enjoyed watching her suffering during intercourse and/or sexual activity of other kinds. In describing her misery she was obviously distressed in the witness box, and I have no doubt she was giving me a true account as to how it felt for her as he took his pleasures, paying no regard to her comfort and feelings. Such a finding does not, however, amount to findings accepting the totality of her evidence of his sexual appetites and the manifestation of them.
- Although she had, in generalised terms, spoken in her affidavits about alleged frequent acts of domestic violence perpetrated upon her by the father, and of sexual assaults and sexual rapacity, it is only in her May 2010 affidavit that she refers to what she asserts was the detail of her life.
- It would be gratuitous to set out, with the level of dense and elaborate detail which she deploys in that affidavit, the nature of the almost daily assaults upon her, be those assaults of physical violence other than sexual, or of the latter category. Her account is one of almost unrelenting degradation of every conceivable kind, beginning from the first day of life in the United Kingdom, and occurring both during their periods living in this country, as well as continuing abroad, particularly when she found herself with the father in his own family home and homeland in Iraq in 2007.
- It is sufficient to record the classes of alleged sexual assault as follows: vaginal, anal and oral rape on a very frequent basis, and sometimes on several occasions in the course of a night.
- Physical (but non-sexual) assaults included slapping to the face and buttocks, punching, hair pulling and kicking. She claims that he left bruises all over her body, and that on one occasion he put his hands around her neck and left finger-tip bruising resulting from the force of his action.
- There is no account in her medical records which I have been able to find, which would suggest that she ever complained to her General Practitioner or nurses of the assaults, or indeed to those treating her for her mental health problems (if indeed she had any). This may have been a problem of language. It may be cultural, or simply reticence. It may be that no such assaults (physical and/or sexual) ever occurred, and thus there was nothing to complain about. It follows from the above that there is no record I have found in the medical evidence to suggest that she was bruised or in any way damaged physically by any of the above, if they occurred.
- There is one possible exception to this proposition in that she alleges she suffered, (particularly as the result of repeated acts of vaginal rape following the birth of R when she and the father had been advised not to engage in vaginal intercourse for a period of four months, but that the father disregarded this advice), from damage to her vagina. There is indeed a reference in the vast quantity of paper generated by this case to the possibility of her having genital surgery. She first spoke of this to a nurse in about June 2008, and when she raised it again with her G.P. she was referred to a hospital for examination and advice. She was told that it was too late for any surgery to occur. She accounts for the fact that at no point in the relevant notes is it suggested by her that she was damaged by virtue of the above alleged acts by saying that she felt so uncomfortable with both the G.P. and the doctor to whom she spoke at the specialist clinic. She felt they were not friendly towards her, and she did not feel able to give an explanation of how her problem had come about, and that on a number of occasions he was the sole interpreter, and even when not there had made his views clear that these matters were not to be published abroad, and that she was too embarrassed and afraid to do so.
- The father submits that if he had behaved in the way she describes she would have been severely physically harmed, and there would have been some medical evidence to support her case. She was, of course throughout the pregnancy, examined on a number of occasions, and following the pregnancy she has had two smear tests. She was also referred to the Mayday Hospital in relation to "gynaecological issues" as noted above, and it is his further submission that even in the absence of an oral complaint by her it would have been obvious to any doctor or nurse examining her if she had been sexually brutalised in the way that she describes. The physical damage to her noted in the records relates to the injuries suffered after the birth of R. She required repairs to tears in the vaginal region, and a torn clitoris. It is impossible to determine whether or not this damage is related to complications at the time of the birth of R or to brutal sexual activity.
- I do not find the absence of medical evidence on this subject of damage to her vaginal and anal areas as determinative of the issue. Over many years of practice, and as a judge in this Division, I have heard evidence from many doctors including gynaecologists and obstetricians, and whilst there is no formal expert medical evidence in relation to the issue in this case I feel able to take a view. Often, when listening to such experts, I have heard evidence of the ability of both the vagina and the anal sphincter muscles to accommodate the insertion, even with significant degrees of force, of large objects including a penis, without leaving signs of obvious damage. Thus I look to other aspects of the evidence in helping me to determine this issue.
- Before giving my further conclusions on this subject, I shall consider some of the allegations of sexual behaviour (see below), and a possible explanation for the mother's knowledge of such sexual acts, the father asserting that she may well have acquired relevant information by watching pornographic material on the television set via satellite channels either in Iran or in England.
- The father asserts that he finds anal sexual intercourse abhorrent, and against his personal tastes, his culture and his religion. He never suggested such a form of sexual behaviour and certainly did not practice it.
- He further denies any taste for oral sex, and when it was attempted it was by her, but he forbad it.
- His way of describing their sole and unvarying sexual activity is to refer to "the missionary position". He followed her lead. His own preference was for "long more drawn-out sex with lots of kissing" (here using "sex" to describe foreplay). But she preferred their relations to be "quick and passionate". He suggests that in fact they had a mixture of the two, although towards the end of the marriage it was the mother's choices which dominated their sexual behaviour.
- As noted above, it is part of the father's case that this mother is overly-familiar with pornographic material watched by her on the television. In his very lengthy and detailed statement of 10th June 2010 he said that he was not suggesting that his wife watched pornography in Iran, but he qualifies that extensively in his third and final statement, asserting:
- What he really relies upon is an alleged occasion approximately four months into their joint occupancy of the Croydon flat when "the gloss had worn off in our relationship". He had retired to bed but awoke in the early hours of the morning and entered the sitting room. He saw the mother propped-up on cushions and watching the television. On his account she appeared not to hear him come into the room and he watched her transfixed by an explicit pornographic image on the television. He goes on to describe in some considerable detail the film she appeared to have been watching including a woman having vaginal and anal sexual intercourse with two men at the same time. He adds much detail, appearing to think the film was of Eastern European origin given the accents of the participants, although he says there was not very much dialogue. He purported to be shocked. When he asked her what she was doing she simply smiled. He withdrew to the bedroom.
- He also asserts that she would stay up late and watch television, and he believed her to have been watching pornographic material. He says that sometimes when he turned the television set on in the daytime he saw adverts for a sexual chat-line "which the porn channel played during the day instead of pornography". He purports to have been concerned that a visitor to the house, or her nephew, might turn the television on and trip, by the programme default position, straight into this channel. There is much more of the same sort from him.
- It is her account that she has never seen pornography in either country. She added that she had "Freeview" in England which is all she watched; that their satellite system did not receive the relevant pornographic channels; and that to watch television at all she needed a pin code which he would not divulge to her. He told me that there were hundreds of such channels on their system and that she had free access to all this material. Curiously, she told me when being cross-examined about this issue that the father had said to her that he had deleted all such channels before she came to the United Kingdom. I have to ask myself how such a conversation arose. Was it because she was asking to see them? Or was it for some other reason, if indeed I were to accept that he made such a statement.
- It seemed to me that neither of these adults was being very frank. The obvious question is how would she know that the satellite did not receive such channels unless she had looked for them, or had been present when the father had done so, or had tried to watch them independently, or he had made the statement recorded above; but if that last were to be the explanation he must have made that statement in response to a question. As far as the father is concerned I find that he has been indicted by his own very detailed account of what he would expect to find on such channels, etc. He shows, in my judgment, considerable familiarity with the channels, and the nature of the material, and particularly tellingly, his evidence about the default position of the channels in the daytime reverting to a chat-line. He is clearly very familiar with such material, and not by being told about it. This comes from personal experience of watching it. Whether or not they watched it together, or whether this was a part of his entertainment in her absence and he spoke to her about it, I am not entirely sure, but I am sure that she had access to it and did watch, whether in his company or not.
- I have already set out part of the account of the father and his submissions on the subject of her sexual allegations. I should only add for the sake of completeness that he was cross-examined extensively on the allegations made by the mother, staunchly maintained his innocence, and expressed cultural, religious and personal distaste for the practices which she says he inflicted upon her. He regarded some of the suggested practices as simply "unhygienic", and thus an inhibiter. He continued to paint himself as a romantic.
- In the course of his oral testimony he requested that I hear evidence in private from him about something he regarded as deeply embarrassing. I declined the invitation, pointing out that any evidence he considered relevant would have to be shared with the other parties. It was only right at the end of his evidence, following re-examination, that he asked me to hear in front of the court what he had to say. He described a condition from which he had allegedly suffered since being a small boy, and in respect of which he has seen a number of doctors, all who claimed that nothing could be done for the condition. This condition was that he suffered from enlarged testes, and that these inhibited his sexual performance, limiting him to one ejaculation per period of sexual activity, and pain to his enlarged testes during the act of sexual intercourse. I note, however, that even on his own account there was regular and frequent intercourse, thus suggesting that this condition, if it exists, is not a complete impediment.
- He told me his reason for not referring this condition to his legal advisors, nor incorporating it into his written evidence, was based upon his acute embarrassment. There is no medical evidence to support his claim. I make no finding in respect of whether or not he suffers from such a condition. The existence of such a condition would not, in my judgment, affect the findings which I make below.
- Having read at great length their respective accounts of their intimate life, and having heard oral evidence on the subject from both of them I have come to the conclusion that:
- Overall I believe her as to the core allegations, and disbelieve him. This finding is also consistent with such acts being perpetrated by him as in part causative of her mental health problems (see paragraphs 116 to 190 below for an analysis of all the relevant material on that subject).
- I am further reinforced in my view that the mother has been exaggerating her allegations (in part) having heard the evidence of a number of the family's neighbours in the accommodation in Croydon, and of the mother's cousin K (a young man who stayed with the mother and father during the summer of 2005). None of them heard the sort of levels of noise (crying out, screaming and crying) which the mother alleges took place, and which they would have been likely to hear if the assaults had taken place as frequently as she claims. Given the nature of the accommodation they were occupying, and given that at one stage her cousin K was sleeping in the next room, it is simply not credible that she was making these sorts of sounds at the level and frequency she asserts. A partial answer to this, accounting for some periods when others might well not have heard her, is to be found in her evidence that when she was crying out in the course of such activities he would stuff her mouth with a sock or his boxer shorts, or put a hand over it to diminish the sound levels. This sounds all-too credible, and I find it to be a compelling detail despite his denials. Overall I find she is exaggerating. However, I do not find the absence of complaint by her to others to be surprising. These are deeply private matters, and she would have had to trust someone to take her seriously and not report back to the father that she had complained. There was no such person to whom she could turn, for with the exception of K to whom it would have been wholly inappropriate to complain, she had no relatives or friends.
- In his affidavit of 27th March 2009 the father speaks of the time when they were living together in Croydon. He describes the mother as being initially reluctant to leave the house, asking if she could return to Iran to visit her family but eventually becoming gradually used to living in the United Kingdom. After a short while she did not wear Moslem dress, and did not speak so frequently of returning to Iran. He spoke of all the domestic burdens falling on his shoulders because she was frequently unwell and requiring visits to the General Practitioner, and that despite his encouragement and attempts to take her out of their home she always wished to remain there, or, if persuaded to venture forth, to return to it almost immediately. He goes on to describe her deteriorating mental condition which ultimately led to her admission to the Maudsley Hospital (see below).
- What is the mother's version of these early days? I have given a brief flavour of her account earlier, but here flesh it out a little. Following her arrival in the United Kingdom in February 2005 she was taken by him to the flat he had previously been living in, and which was to be their marital home. He had given her a wholly false account of his accommodation, and that the reality was equivalent to a sordid squat, and dirty. He controlled her, only permitted her to go out when accompanied by him or his brother A and his wife F, and in effect all-but kept her prisoner in the home. She was not allowed to meet with anyone other than those authorised by him. On occasions when visitors came to the home (for example his male friends) she would not be allowed to meet them. She was constantly criticised, belittled, and found herself victim of what she describes as his religious and cultural views which are, she asserts, typical of orthodox Moslem households in the countries from which each of them came (see above for my summary of her evidence on this subject). His behaviour towards her (including sexual abuse and domestic violence) did indeed lead her to feel depressed (not in a clinical sense) and unhappy, particularly prior to, and following immediately on from, the birth of R. I accept her evidence on this subject save as to her actual mental state. Although I have been shown photographs of outings and of her wearing (at times) western clothes and make-up, she is also seen in many of those photographs wearing traditional Kurdish garments. I have no doubt that by virtue of her sheltered background, lack of education, and inability to speak English, she was indeed lost in this culture, and very isolated, reliant on the opportunities her husband and relations brought her to go out. She remained, essentially, profoundly isolated and lonely. In addition, as Mrs. Crowley reminded me, she was not only a young wife in an alien landscape, she fell pregnant within weeks of her arrival, and had a bad time during her pregnancy. She frequently suffered from morning sickness, and developed gestational diabetes. The birth of R was a difficult and painful one, leading to the physical consequences described above. It is not surprising she felt beleaguered.
- At a recent interlocutory hearing I made it clear that I would not investigate in detail allegations relating to the alleged fraudulent obtaining of benefits, and aspects of his financial dealings generally. Nevertheless the material had been made available by the department of the London Borough of Croydon, which was investigating these matters, and was unquestionably relevant to credibility as I also noted at that earlier directions hearing. I do not criticise the father, or his legal team, for not dealing with these matters in detail in any of his written material in the light of the above indication. Nor do I criticise them for not asking permission to deal with these matters in evidence in chief. However, I did permit Miss Theis Q.C. (leading counsel for the mother) to ask questions which essentially went to credibility. I gave the father a clear and appropriate warning before he answered any of these questions, but he did not exercise what is sometimes mistakenly referred to as "the right to silence". Such was the nature of his evidence that I have felt able to come to certain conclusions as to his credibility. The London Borough of Croydon social services department is a party to these proceedings, although not, quite rightly, represented at this fact-finding hearing. I emphasise that I do not give permission for the social services department to divulge my findings in respect of these financial matters to the department of the local authority which is considering whether or not to prosecute him.
- At various times, the father has drawn Social Security benefits in one form or another to sustain himself and his family. Indeed it is a part of his case, in his first statement, that he lives on State benefits and does not have a large income. At other times in this country he appears to have had various forms of employment and self-employment including the ownership of a general provisions store. By virtue of an order I made on 22nd February 2010 the material prepared by that department for the purposes of considering a prosecution was, with their consent, made available to the MPS initially for the purposes of redacting any information which might lead to knowledge of the whereabouts of the mother, and then, once vetted, to all parties. At the conclusion of this hearing I do not know what that department has decided in respect of prosecution.
- He was cross-examined on various documents relating to applications by him for public benefits, including housing benefit, and other income benefits separate from it, and in relation to documents concerning bank loans and his bank account. It is sufficient here to record that he has lied to the Housing Benefit Department; and to the Department of Works & Pensions as to his work, and/or lack of it; he has lied to them about his child-care duties in relation to R, and where R was residing at the time of one particular claim to give but one example; he has lied in respect of obtaining child benefit. At one point in cross-examination he told me that he had problems with the benefits agency, not knowing how to ring them up to stop the benefit being paid to him. He has grossly misled his bankers by providing false information as to his income and employer; and, in responding in cross-examination to all of these questions, was patently lying to the court. To give a further example, he claimed in cross-examination, that his banker had just told him to sign a loan application form and that he, the banker, would make up all the relevant details. The father spoke of his inability to read English in this context. At one point in this part of his testimony he told me with a straight face "I don't know how to lie": a preposterous claim given the weight and detail of the contrary evidence on this subject. I have not by any means given a full account of the nature and extent of his duplicity on this subject. I remind myself that selective credibility is a slippery eel, and that it is perfectly possible for a person to lie at every turn in relation to, for example, the obtaining of unlawful financial reward, and yet be telling the truth in relation to other matters. I have thus approached issues of credibility (no matter whom the witness) on the basis of the authority of R v Lucas (R) [1981] QB720 73 Cr. App R159.
- It is necessary at this point (although I have laid some markers down already) to consider in greater detail the mother's "psychiatric" history. I shall begin by setting out the essence of the father's case on this subject and what he says were the consequential effects on the mother's ability to care for their child. I shall then go on to consider various aspects of the voluminous material made available to me, including the mother's medical records; the reports of Dr. Wilkins (a consultant psychiatrist); the essence of the mother's version of this part of her life; and my findings on this material.
- The father, in his statement of 10th June 2010, suggests that the mother's behaviour "became strange" as the pregnancy with R progressed. For example she would make "bizarre requests" including a request to travel to Iran to see her mother only for a day. She began to neglect herself, did not change her clothes and was careless with her personal hygiene. She was listless. Her behaviour towards him deteriorated, and when he refused her requests she would from time-to-time hit him, shout at him and swear at him. She would wake up in the night suffering from nightmares, and would at times hear voices. She had visual hallucinations as well, for example mistaking a hanging dress for a person in the room.
- She became "very withdrawn" and had periods of "quite intense anger". She was very defensive about her illness, and attempted to hide it from the world. The father speaks of suggesting that she should see her G.P., and that whilst the first general practice with whom they were registered was not particularly helpful (refusing for example to obtain interpreters) they transferred, in September 2005, to a second practice who were infinitely more helpful. I shall deal below with treatment by the mental health services.
- The father speaks of being very conscious of the difficulty for her in not having interpreters other than himself. Thus, he says, whilst he might take a limited part in some of the sessions, he was generally absent. He submits, it was entirely open to the mother, if she were indeed suffering the sort of behaviour from him of which she now complains, to speak freely to those whom she was seeing in consultation/or treatment. See below for the mother's riposte to this when I consider the evidence of Dr. Wilkins.
- The father devotes many paragraphs in his May 2010 statement to the withdrawal of the mother from the daily tasks of childcare. It is his view that, possibly because of her deteriorating mental health, she did not bond with R. There was, at the outset, a problem with feeding, she suffering from mastitis; yet she did not know how to use a steriliser, despite frequently being told of the necessity to do so by the midwives, and thus feeding R fell to the father. She did not care to bathe the boy, nor change his diapers. She appeared to be frightened of holding him. It is the father's case that she liked R when he was asleep, enjoying the idea of a baby without the reality of having to care for him, and she liked taking photographs of him, but his crying and daily needs were not something she could cope with. In closing written submissions Mrs. Crowley gives many examples of observations by professionals (social workers, health visitors, and others) who speak of a mother who was "detached" from R, who appeared not to have any insight into his needs, nor meet even basic needs for care and attention. A number of them speak of the father being the parent with whom R had the greater attachment, and who provided nurture for his son. See references in paragraphs 191 to 199 for contrary evidence from others, and in this context I note that the father himself has given contradictory accounts in which he suggests that the mother does indeed love her son.
- In the ensuing months as R grew older she allegedly hit R on a number of occasions when he cried.
- The father could not work (demonstrably untrue as I have found earlier), they had no money, and the mother did not wish to be left alone, yet allegedly locked him out of their flat from time-to-time. I accept on the basis of the evidence of Mrs. ST (see elsewhere) that this did occur despite the mother's denial. He would find the baby had been neglected on returning and/or being readmitted.
- He points to the many examples in the nursing notes (from the Bethlem Hospital) about worries as to her care of R on the unit (see below). There she is reported as speaking of wanting to harm the baby, to slap him, and of being neglectful of him. She was quick to leave R alone. She was rough with him, and fed him too quickly. The father draws attention to a quite different impression given by the mother as soon as a friend arrived at the hospital when she would be "very gentle and different" with R. What do the medical records reveal on these subjects? I fear a number of the following paragraphs will involve repetition of the above matters, but in considerably more detail.
- The recorded history of alleged mental health difficulties in the mother begins shortly after her arrival in this country. I have been provided with documentation, largely in the format of letters passing between doctors, which describes the mother's presentation from time-to-time over the years.
- I have also been supplied with two psychiatric reports prepared by Dr. Wilkins, consultant psychiatrist in adult and forensic psychiatry. The first substantial report is dated 7th August 2009, following a consultation with the mother on 21st July 2009, she being assisted by a Farsi speaking interpreter. His second examination of her took place on 14th January 2010 when she was assisted by a Kurdish speaking interpreter. The consequential report is dated 4th February 2010. It is noteworthy that Dr. Wilkins emphasised that Kurdish is the mother's first language, and that it was the interpreter's view in January 2010 that the mother was communicating far more freely in Kurdish than she had done in Farsi. One further advantage of this consultation was that, by the time of it, Dr. Wilkins had had access to the mother's medical records charting her history in considerable detail. It seems to me necessary to visit a substantial number of entries in that medical documentation in this judgment prior to further consideration of Dr. Wilkins' two reports.
- I have seen no documents concerning her history in Iran prior to her arrival in this country in February 2005. However, when seen at the A & E Department of the Mayday Hospital in Croydon on or about 19th September 2005 (with her husband inferentially acting as her interpreter – for there is no reference to an independent interpreter in the report) she spoke of contact with the Iranian Mental Health Services when she became depressed in Iran in approximately 2003. Her version of events changes from time-to-time in relation to this period, but it is certainly part of the father's case that he now knows that the mother's family were aware that she had mental health problems when she lived in Iran, and had thought that she might improve once living in Europe. The doctor seeing her in September 2005 was informed that she had no apparent precipitating factors for that earlier referral, but that she had seen a psychiatrist five times, had been given anti-depressants, but did not comply with the medication. She described her depression as continuing since 2003, but becoming worse since February 2005. She felt angry and had lashed out at family members in the past. She spoke of having wanted to commit suicide on four different occasions when in Iran but was prevented from doing so by her mother. Or so at least the doctor was told by the husband acting as interpreter. She now asserts that at no time in her life in Iran was she ever ill in this way, and that she had no dealings with the mental health services there. Her mother, father and brothers support her in this denial. In addition, they state that no other member of their immediate family (including her brother J) was involved with the mental health services in that country, despite the father's allegation to the contrary.
- She admitted to suicidal ideation in August 2005, but then "thought of the baby" which prevented her from self-harming.
- She described hearing the voice of her parents talking to her on three occasions when she had been on her own. She further reported "vague paranoid ideas, feeling people are talking about her". She had guilt feelings about "fighting" with her husband (it is not clear if this is a reference to physical fights or verbal). She had poor sleep and early morning awakening, poor concentration and lack of motivation.
- The senior charge nurse at Mayday described "her mood was subjectively depressed and objectively low". She declined medication in view of the pregnancy.
- They spoke of wanting to separate and have separate accommodation, it being said that their continuing to live together was "causing [the mother's] mental state to deteriorate". The senior charge nurse pointed out accommodation was not in his gift and so was asked for a letter of support for the Housing Department which he supplied. After giving such a letter reporting the consultation "they assured me that [the mother] would be able to maintain her own safety and would not act on ideas of suicide". Two points arise from this last passage:
- A staff grade doctor saw her at the Mayday hospital on 23rd September 2005, her husband again interpreting. This appointment was set up by the senior charge nurse referred to above. She was still described as being low in mood. Although she was "expressing suicidation" (sic) she assured the doctor she had no plan or intent, and that there was no past history of suicide (sic). One oddity of this report (but it may simply be a question of the different reporting styles of the charge nurse and the doctor) is that in this doctor's report dated 3rd October 2005 the mother had allegedly said that "she had been admitted in Iran for depression". There is no reference to psychiatric admission in the first report. On this occasion the doctor describes her mood as "subjectively and objectively low". There was no evidence of auditory or visual hallucination, thought disorder, paranoia or delusional ideation. He referred her to the community mental health team. On 10th November 2005 she was seen by a consultant psychiatrist (FM) at an outpatient clinic at the Tamworth Road Resource Centre. Her husband accompanied her but only joined her for the later part of the interview. She was throughout accompanied by a Farsi speaking interpreter. Having described being depressed for some two years, she went on to talk of a difficult relationship with her parents and at times feeling suicidal when in Iran. She described two occasions to him (one involving a knife and another her father's gun) but she had been prevented by her mother from carrying out these acts. She described her husband as "generally supportive but she is difficult at times with him". She wanted her own space. She had occasional current suicidal ideation. On joining the consultation the father spoke of being unaware of her psychiatric problems prior to marriage, but hoped to be advised by the mental health services on how to manage her feelings. The doctor noted that she appeared depressed. He further noted her report of occasional auditory hallucinations (mainly of her mother). It was her view that she suffered from depression and that, post the birth of R, she should have a trial of anti-depressant medication.
- The next report is dated 5th January 2006 and is from the same doctor (FM) who had seen her again on 29th December 2005 along with her husband and a Kurdish speaking interpreter. She described being increasingly depressed following the birth of R, a self-diagnosis with which the doctor agreed, he recommending anti-depressant medication. At this consultation she spoke of her positive feelings for R when he was asleep, but when he was awake "and starts crying she becomes very irritable and cannot handle it". She further described anger and irritability with her husband which he corroborated.
- The same doctor saw her again on 26th January. Her irritability with her husband continued but by this time she was describing how she "enjoys the baby and likes spending time with him". There is no indication in this report whether she attended with her husband and/or an interpreter, but it must have been one or the other, for at that stage she was still not speaking any English.
- She failed her appointment with that same doctor (FM) on 9th March 2006. However, she did attend her appointment on 20th April 2006, and it is my inference from the content of a brief letter FM sent to her G.P. that the husband was not present. There again must have been an interpreter. She remained on sertraline, and spoke of being compliant with it. She further described her "main problem" as losing her temper especially with her husband, and she was considering leaving him and seeking independent accommodation from the council (even by way of emergency bed and breakfast accommodation).
- The doctor (FM) saw her again on 12th June 2006, and again I infer from the content of her letter to the G.P. that the husband was absent, but that she again had an interpreter. On these subsequent visits to the doctor, he does not note whether she was speaking with the aid of a Farsi or a Kurdish interpreter. On this occasion she was again saying that she enjoyed her time with her baby but described frequent loss of temper and angry outbursts, although further describing her husband as "quite patient with these outbursts".
- The doctor (FM) referred her to another doctor (RM) whose specialism was clinical psychology. That doctor (RM) saw the mother (with a Kurdish Sorani interpreter) on 29th June 2006 and 6th and 13th July 2006.
- In the course of these sessions with RM she is reported as saying that although her husband did nothing to make her angry, her own sensitivities make her blame him for unspecified "things" and she has angry outbursts, breaking dishes and objects around her. She spoke of not remembering such incidents and that her husband had to explain to her what she had done. She described smashing 12 plates on one occasion, and on another hitting her husband of whom she said "he is nice but I don't want to stay with anybody", going on to express a wish to divorce. [The father agrees she broke the plates but the mother counter-alleges that he did so].
- She told the psychologist that it was her own choice to marry her husband, and that their relationship was good at the time of the marriage although she had been depressed prior thereto. The report also notes towards its end, in respect of her angry outbursts, that she talks of her husband doing "nothing to provoke her". It was agreed between the doctor and the mother that she would have 12 sessions of psychological therapy.
- The first doctor (FM) saw her again at the Tamworth Road Resource Centre on 7th August 2006 in the company of an interpreter (language unknown). She had, she said, in the previous few days, left her husband and moved to live with a friend, not intending to return to him. I was informed in the course of the oral evidence that it is the mother's case that she had not separated at all from her husband, but that this was overall a part of his subterfuge, and that she was required by him to say this. I do not make any finding on this either way. She reported seeing faces and images in the furniture, and to hearing voices (mainly of her husband). She could not elaborate. The doctor described her as depressed and experiencing "some psychotic symptoms". And she raised her dose of the recently described olanzapine.
- The doctor (FM) saw her again on 4th September 2006 with an interpreter (again language unknown). Although the mother had previously allegedly left her husband, by the time of this consultation she had allegedly moved back in with him, this was reportedly because she and the baby were unwell when staying at the friend's house. She described continuing to hear voices and losing her temper with her husband.
- The same doctor (FM) saw her again on 25th September 2006 with an interpreter (again language unknown). The appointment had been brought forward as there were worries expressed by the clinical psychologist who was seeing her regularly because the mother reported feeling increasingly unwell and that she had, on occasion, "hit the baby". The mother had agreed with the psychologist to a Child in Need referral to social services but had misunderstood the instruction and had attended on her own rather than with her husband. To the doctor she said she continued to feel depressed and had nightmares both about her mother and her baby. She admitted to continuing to hear voices on occasions, sometimes those voices talking to her about her mother and sometimes about herself. She indicated that similar nightmares and voices had occurred when she lived in Iran prior to her marriage. She described the first month with her husband in the U.K. as being very happy and she was pleased to leave Iran and particularly her father of whom she was afraid. With pregnancy, however, came the above symptoms. She reported that, to some extent, her husband reminded her of her father, although she admitted that "he [her own father] was aggressive towards her and her husband is generally kind and caring", although she did not feel he was the right person for her and didn't get on with him. She spoke of her irritability with the baby but denied hitting him. She continued to report auditory hallucinations.
- Once again, the consultant (FM) saw her on 9th October 2006 with an interpreter. The father was not present although he had attended her last appointment with a psychologist, expressing worries about the mother's lack of improvement. To this doctor she spoke of feeling unwell. She had reduced, of her own motion, her daily intake of olanzapine, and had not taken that drug nor cetraline for a week having run out of the medication, with a consequential effect on her symptoms. She continued to hear voices and occasionally saw visions of her mother and dead aunt. She continued to have angry outbursts with her husband but not to the baby.
- The clinical psychologist (RM) reported to the consultant psychiatrist (Dr. VO) in charge of the mother and baby in-patient unit at the Bethlem Royal Hospital following the mother's urgent admission to that unit on 12th October 2006. She wanted that psychiatrist to know of the mother's progress in the therapy sessions of which there had so far been seven in the presence of the Kurdish Sorani interpreter. She described the sessions as being comparatively limited in scope because of the worsening of the mother's symptoms and the problems of working through an interpreter.
- It provides a useful cross-check against what was being reported to the first psychiatrist at the Tamworth Road Resource Centre. As I have noted earlier, by the second session she reported hearing voices calling her, and disembodied conversations three or four times a day. She saw hands and eyes in the furniture. She had nightmares three or four times a night, including seeing her baby dead. At later sessions she described leaving her husband for a few weeks and then returning. At the fifth session she was stating that the focus of her anger was no longer only her husband "but also her baby" and she had only been prevented from hitting R by her husband (see above for the Child in Need referral). By the end of September 2006 she was reporting a worsening of her auditory hallucinations, and that on two or three occasions when at home alone with the baby she had been "painfully hit on the face although no-one else was there".
- On 5th October 2006 (seventh session) she had arrived with her husband, and it was that which led to an emergency referral to Croydon social services, and a recommendation for her immediate admission to the mother and baby unit at the Bethlem on 12th October. In a preliminary interview conducted by the senior house officer at the mother and baby unit she apparently described her husband as "being very supportive and she does not understand why she becomes angry with him at times". There is also a remark of hers reported in quotation marks: "this was not an arranged marriage, I liked him". She added: "I was very glad he took me out of that family" – a reference to her birth family.
- The report also notes that on 17th October 2006 the mother was speaking of having "thoughts and impulses to slap her baby", and despite being advised that such behaviour was not acceptable, she said "she could not control herself". There were bite marks found on R's leg on 18th October 2006 leading to an immediate separation of the mother and baby. R was looked after by his father, and the mother was transferred to a general psychiatric ward.
- On 14th November 2006 a senior charge nurse (SB) was writing to the mother's G.P. that along with the Home Treatment Team she had seen the mother. With the benefit of an interpreter it was elicited that she was denying any suicidal thoughts, and there was no evidence of her feeling depressed. It was their view that there did not appear to be any psychotic processes going on, although she had little insight.
- The above referred-to assessment (conducted some time in late October or early November) led to her being discharged home on about 8th November 2006, but unhappily a burn was noticed on R's hand on 11th November during another home visit. Both parents said that the burn was the result of R accidentally burning himself, his cot being too near a radiator, although the observers did not regard this as consistent with R rubbing his hand on the radiator and were worried that it might be a non-accidental injury. No enquiry ensued. The mother's state was described (presumably by her husband as interpreter for there is no reference to an independent one) as being changeable and she was still "fairly unwell".
- A specialist registrar (Dr. DT) at the Westways Resource Centre saw the mother on 30th November 2006 when she attended with her husband, and a Kurdish interpreter. She seemed reasonably well, although continued to describe feeling low in mood and having auditory hallucinations. Her husband was described as being at home all of the time, and being the main carer of both mother and child, giving the mother her medication at appropriate intervals. She was prescribed a new anti-depressant (paroxetine).
- The clinical psychologist (Dr. RM) carrying out the therapeutic sessions noted that the mother missed her appointment in January 2007, and there follows a long gap in the dates of correspondence, for the next letter is dated 16th August 2007 and notes that the mother did not attend her appointment on that day at the West Community Mental Health Team. On the G.P's computer-generated running sheets there are no references to any appointments or consultations at the surgery between January and August 2007. She was back in Iraq and Iran.
- What led the mother to consult the surgery again was that she was pregnant and it was said that she did not wish to proceed with the pregnancy. The documentation suggests that, once she found herself pregnant, she was referred to the Marie Stopes clinic for a termination. She claims that the termination was carried out against her will and only undertaken by her after being forced to do so by her husband. See paragraph 219 for further consideration of this issue.
- Returning, however, to the letter of 16th August 2007 from the specialist registrar (Dr. AS) to the GP, he notes that on her earlier admission the Home Treatment team could "find no evidence of any symptomatology except for some voices which they deemed were not psychotic in nature".
- She was, shortly after this time, once again back in Iran, and later in Iraq. She did not return to the United Kingdom until February 2008.
- On 1st May 2008 Detective Constable RB was writing to the GP's practice asking a number of questions about the mother, the father and R. This was all against a background of the mother alleging (to the police) that R had been abducted by his father and held overseas against her will. She had also told the police that "she took her son to (the) surgery and a GP noticed bruises on him and made comment about these". I can summarise the questions and answers (as required) in the following way:
- It may be questioned why I have dealt at such length with the medical records. I believe the answer to be self-evident: the mother is, in many respects, an inconsistent reporter of events in her life, both historical and more recently as appears from the above material. She has changed her position even in the period covered by the letters let alone later, particularly in relation to the nature of her marriage to, and relationship with, her husband as can be seen. It is said by the father that the mother's credibility is highly suspect, that she was historically, unquestionably, mentally unwell during a significant period (or periods), and that her presentation (described above to the various professionals in the mental health field with whom she came into contact) was not only consistent with, but also supportive of, a proper diagnosis of mental ill-health, rather than a woman engaging in an elaborate subterfuge at the behest of her husband (see paragraphs 163 – 171 below). What does Dr. Wilkins say?
- He has provided the two reports referred to above. He is (as earlier noted) a consultant psychiatrist in general adult and forensic psychiatry approved under section 12 (2) of the Mental Health Act. He has extensive experience and has been a consultant for 25 years.
- Before turning to his conclusions I should set out some of the material gleaned from his two reports. Once again, I fear, there will be a degree of unavoidable repetition in what follows. The mother gave her account of being the youngest of five children, and the only girl, with both of her parents alive and living in Iran, her father now being in his late 70's and her mother in her late 60's.
- She was negative about her father and referred to him forcing her into the marriage (c.f. previous histories). She described extensive discrimination by him against her during her childhood in relation to her education, and preventing her from mixing with her peers especially after puberty.
- Over the years her older brothers had taken her father's side in relation to her "forced" marriage and she had thereafter had no contact with them. This is not consistent with part of the history I have recorded below where, at one stage, one of her four brothers provided her with extensive support when she was seeking to have R returned to her. She also told Dr. Wilkins that she had "even been threatened with physical and sexual violence and even (sic) killing by one of her brothers" (probably J – see below), although the context of this allegation is not altogether clear from his report. In her statement in these proceedings of April 2009 she speaks of the period before her marriage when she tried to persuade her family that she should not marry the father. She alleges that her brother J said that "it is either death or you belong to him". She suggests that she took J's threat very seriously. In a more recent context, following the murder of BM in 2006, that murder allegedly being carried out because BM had divorced her first husband and tried to marry another man, she speaks of J's response when she spoke to him by telephone following her separation from the father and her establishing a relationship with the Afghan male to whom I make further reference elsewhere. J allegedly said to her on this occasion "if I am only in the U.K. for one day I will use that day to fuck you and then I will kill you".
- Her mother, she told him, had been unable to exert any influence over her father or her brothers, and thus their discrimination against her was unopposed within the household.
- Of her marriage she said she had been betrothed at the age of 9, but had not met her husband until the time of her marriage at the age of 26. [This is itself inconsistent with the agreed history given elsewhere].
- As to her mental health she spoke to Dr. Wilkins of seeing a psychiatrist, the last meeting being in 2006, but she denied any family history of mental illness, and any past history of mental illness herself, inconsistent with other histories she has given to those writers summarised above.
- How then to account for all that I have incorporated above in that section of this judgment dealing with her medical records. I quote Dr. Wilkins at D93 (his August report):
- At D94 she goes on to speak of "Mr. A" becoming "quite angry with her because she was unable to give a convincing account" of supposed symptoms to the doctor. Her husband would give her three or four hours coaching, and told her to say that she "heard things". When she had been asked what she had heard she claimed not to know and accordingly had to refer to her husband for the details. She recalled being asked about visual hallucinations but denied having any. She spoke of not wanting to be admitted to hospital, but had found herself in one for approximately 28 days.
- I again quote from Dr. Wilkins (D94):
- In her May 2010 statement the mother repeats these explanations and gives considerable detail about what she says the father gave her by way of instruction and coaching. She was told to say that she had visual and auditory hallucinations; that she had tried to commit suicide in Iran; that her mother had prevented her from so doing, etc. She was told to select another member of her family as also suffering from mental health problems, and accordingly she chose her brother J with whom she did not get on. She was told to lie about having had a doctor in Iran. She was further told to say that she found herself incapable of controlling her temper, and that she was not able to look after R. She was required, by him, to indicate to the doctor that she hit the father, that she broke things in the home, and that after such events she would forget that they had ever occurred. It is thus that she accounts for what the doctors have considered to be her lack of insight into her "mental illness". She specifically denies a time "when I ever displayed any symptoms of mental illness to any doctor. I may have been tearful on occasions but this was simply to add to the effect".
- She accounts for her failure to be honest with her community psychiatric nurse (who always came to see her with an interpreter) by stating that the father was always present, and had directed her to be very cautious in what she said to the CPN. Thus "I never got to be truthful with the CPN because of the pressure from the defendant".
- She says the same was true (namely not feeling able to tell the truth to her social worker) although she does not, in this passage, state that the father was present during these interviews.
- She accounts for her admission to the Maudsley Hospital as being directed by the father and that she needed to be admitted to hospital to "prove that I had mental health problems. I reluctantly went to Bethlem two days later". [Although I record this out of sequence, if not out of context, it is clear from certain notes that the father was expressing worry about the mother being admitted to hospital, for then it would become known that she had mental health problems, the inference being that it would potentially damage her (and him) within her community.]
- She further asserts that it made no difference whether her husband was present or not when she had interviews with any of the above, for he had informed her that if she did not "stick to the script" he would find out, and there would be consequences.
- Is there any support for the mother's account of why she said all these things to the doctors? As I have noted above in a recently filed affidavit of her own mother, R's grandmother states, in conformity with the mother's evidence on this subject, that the mother had suffered from no mental health problems in Iran prior to her marriage. Nor had the mother ever attempted to take her own life. Finally she asserts that no-one else in the family suffered from mental health problems, particularly her own sons. I have had the opportunity of hearing from the maternal grandmother, and my assessment of her evidence on this subject is set out below as incorporated by inference into my findings. I have also taken account of the mother's oral evidence on this subject, and will give my views on her testimony later.
- Of the termination of a pregnancy in August 2007 she spoke to Dr. Wilkins of being coerced into it. The limited documentation made available by the Marie Stopes clinic provides no useful indicators to either support or undermine this account. Thus I am left having to evaluate the word of the mother and the father on this subject, illuminated by such extraneous information as can be gleaned from other records.
- One of her other allegations to Dr. Wilkins about her husband is that he is a "people trafficker". There is no objective evidence to support this allegation. Apart from this one entry in the plethora of documentation, I have seen no other reported allegation of this type by the mother or indeed anybody else. This is not established on the evidence before me.
- Of the period following her marriage when she remained living with her parents in their home, she described her husband as behaving "very appropriately and kindly towards her", however becoming sexually voracious and aggressive and bullying to her on arrival in the United Kingdom some six months after her marriage. This is yet a further variant on the different time-period she has given (see above). Yet it is consistent with her current allegation. Although she did not claim to have been seriously injured in any of his assaults, she spoke of being pushed to the floor, kicked and punched, and that on occasions he would use a slipper or a hose-pipe to assault her, there being some act of violence on a daily basis. This too is consistent with her current history.
- In 2007 the mother tells Dr. Wilkins she returned to Iran to see her family, taking her son with her. She only spent some two weeks with them, then travelling to Iraq to stay with the father's family. She was not permitted to return to Iran but was required by that family to remain in their home. They informed her that the father was going to divorce her. When he arrived he indicated that he did not want to be married to her and, she says, a Talaq was pronounced. This is entirely at odds with her written and oral evidence to me where she says that she was not present, and no member of her family has reported being present, at the pronouncement of a Talaq.
- Dr. Wilkins continues: "She told me that he even threatened to kill her in front of his family. There was a meeting between both families. Her brother (not named but undoubtedly J) threatened the father, but also said that her brother would kill her if something was wrong in the relationship" (see below). It was her belief that in fact they had not been formally divorced, and in describing the dispute between the two families about how to proceed, there is a suggestion (noted by Dr. Wilkins) that her family was, at that stage, being supportive of her with the exception of one brother. I shall consider this period again in much more detail below.
- She went on to describe remaining with the father's family, and that despite the issue of divorce referred to above, he continued to want intercourse with her (and inferentially she was forced to endure it) and she became pregnant again. She was told not to come back to the United Kingdom. This again is consistent, in part, with her current version.
- There is then a somewhat confused and confusing account of what happened next. The one thing which comes across clearly by way of assertion is that the father's family regarded the child as theirs. She nevertheless, after family interventions, was allowed to leave Iraq with the child, eventually returning to the United Kingdom for one month, during which she records that she was made to have the termination of the pregnancy (see below).
- It is her then account that in August 2007 she left the United Kingdom for Iran with her husband and child on holiday. One night they were staying in an hotel. It is the mother's account to Dr. Wilkins that, during that evening, she was drugged, possibly with medication that she had been prescribed on her discharge from hospital in 2006. Since she has elsewhere claimed that she did not take any of that medication for she received none, it is a puzzle to me that she was carrying it on this occasion. She describes awakening from her drugged state and found herself restrained (tied to the bed) and her husband and child missing. She pursued them to Iraq but was prevented by his family from having any contact with them. She has never seen the child again. For other more detailed versions of these events see below.
- In July 2009 Dr. Wilkins could not detect any evidence that the mother suffered from a personality disorder. In coming to that conclusion (D97/98) he reprises some of the information I have given above and says this:
- He notes that on many occasions when she had either a Farsi or a Kurdish interpreter and her husband was absent from consultations with the GP and other doctors with whom she came into contact during 2005 and 2007, that she had the opportunity to discuss her symptoms openly with staff without interference from her husband. He also notes inconsistencies in the accounts given by the mother from time-to-time to various doctors/nurses who interviewed her over the years. I need not illustrate these further.
- Overall, in considering the material available to him prior to writing his July report, Dr. Wilkins finds that:
- At interview with him she showed no sign of mental illness, or depression. There were no symptoms of pathological anxiety, panic disorder, etc. He detected no evidence "to suggest that she harboured any delusional thoughts, paranoid ideas, experienced hallucinatory phenomena or had other symptoms that were suggestive of any psychotic illness". He notes, however, that this is clearly at variance with her presentation in 2005 and 2006. He adds that:
- Her denial of suffering from any symptoms of mental illness in the two years (2005 – 2006) I have mentioned is, at its lowest, a puzzle. Is her account that this was an elaborate charade at the behest of her husband true? Does her apparent recovery noted above support her account that the depressive episode and psychotic symptoms were false accounts? Or is it the case, as Dr. Wilkins emphasises that such a recovery from genuine mental ill-health "is not unheard of, should not be considered to be particularly unusual, and should not necessarily undermine the diagnosis as it appears to have been in 2006".
- Dr. Wilkins' professional opinion is that:
- At her second interview on 14th January 2010 she was unable to remember any presenting symptoms of the kind noted by the health services in 2005 and thereafter. He suggested to her that the notes recorded her as being depressed and suicidal, and she acknowledged that she had said that but that it had been untrue. All of the alleged symptoms and problems related "to her husband's pressure to present symptoms in that way in order to obtain an advantage in relation to housing and benefits" (in other words maintaining her earlier explanations). The more Dr. Wilkins pressed her about the old records relating to herself, her family, her life in Iran etc., the more she repeated the above explanation. She maintained that she had been threatened by her husband even when he was not present at any interviews with medical staff, and he had told her that he might go to prison if she failed to keep up the pretence. She had not reported the truth because she thought there was no sufficient confidentiality and that everything she said would get back to him.
- As to medication prescribed, she had taken it in hospital, being unable to hide it from the staff, but had never taken any outside the hospital environs. I touched earlier on the medication she said she thought she had been required to take when drugged by her husband and abandoned in her hotel room in Meriwan; but at this interview she said she had taken no such medication with her, and had simply been given "headache tablets" which had made her sleepy. In her recent substantial statement in these proceedings she said that she had in fact been given a tablet for a headache by her husband, but that in fact it must have been a sleeping tablet of some kind. Thus the account recorded in this paragraph is more consistent with her current explanation set out in her June 2010 affidavit. See below for further consideration of these matters, and findings in respect of this issue.
- As to the father's current presentation, she was of the view that he would rather kill the child than give him back to his mother; and should the child remain with his father, the latter would kill her rather than permit contact. This by virtue of the "dishonour" caused to him of having reported his behaviour as she has both to the police and to this court.
- There was no evidence on examination of current mental illness. Of her accounts Dr. Wilkins says this:
- The totality of the evidence leads me to the following conclusions:
- I offer the following tentative views. The evidence persuades me that at times her mental health problems were such that they did indeed impair her ability to look after R. Although I have not heard any independent witnesses from the period of her time in the mental health unit and in her dealings overall with the specialist mental health services, social services and health services, and thus their opinions have not been tested in cross-examination. I am persuaded by the significant number of independent entries throughout the medical records, and particularly when she was on that mother and baby unit with R, to find that there were serious worries about her abilities.
- I am also persuaded that she did on one occasion bite R to the extent of leaving visible marks upon his leg, and I reject her denial of this allegation. However, there is insufficient evidence for me to determine whether or not this act of hers was malicious, deliberate cruelty or carried out for some other reason.
- She is, unhappily, an unreliable witness as to her own behaviour on that unit, and I find that she is re-writing history (a not uncommon characteristic) in order to improve the impression of her as a competent and caring mother throughout. I should emphasise, however, that the evidence of her ability to look after R is not a one-way street when under such observation. There are a number of entries in the nursing notes for this period of her admission to the unit to establish that, on occasions, she was a very attentive, caring and loving mother.
- I consider that evidence leading to these findings in relation to her child care abilities are not the only evidence on this subject. There are times when the nursing notes record that she behaved lovingly and entirely appropriately towards R. I heard evidence from the father's aunt (NAA) and her daughter (HA) to the effect that whilst they did have worries at various times about her child care, at other times she behaved entirely properly. These two last identified witnesses were not the only ones to speak in this way about her. Her sister-in-law (F) also said that when she was well she was a good mother, and no-one doubts her love for R, save for the father in his current stance, and his mother.
- It also follows from these findings that at times the father was indeed the main carer for R, and I do not accept the mother's evidence that he simply puts on a show of being a caring attentive father when visitors are there, and immediately abandons all responsibility for child care once they have gone. I find that he does care for R, and loves his son, subject to what I have to say about his exclusion of the mother from the boy's life, and the way he brought that about.
- There are a number of specific allegations that in the course of her time caring for R he was the subject of injury other than the bite on his leg. There is one dispute in particular relating to a burn on his bottom. Apparently he came into contact with an oil drum (part of a heating system common to those parts of Iran and Iraq where these families lived). It is the father's case that the mother caused this burn when she pushed R and he fell against the drum, and the mother's that the injury was sustained whilst in the care of the father's family. Although a number of witnesses spoke about it, I am unable to come to any finding as to which household had the care of the boy when this injury was sustained. The only finding I feel entitled to make on this subject is that I do not consider it probable that, whichever household this occurred in, the injury was deliberately and cruelly inflicted. It is more likely than not to have been the result of inattentive care rather than positive assault. I do not make findings in respect of other allegations of injury to the boy. The evidence does not to my satisfaction entitle me to come to any conclusion on the balance of probabilities, or even on the basis of levels of suspicion which would be insufficient in any event, in respect of any of them.
- I accept that such were the objective worries by social services and the mental health teams about the mother's child-care (consistent with their observations over a comparatively limited period, supplemented by a reasonable conjecture on their part that she would have problems caring for R even when not under such acute observation), that they were entitled to come to the view that there should be a formal agreement between them, the mother and the father (entered into on 3rd November 2006), the thrust of which was designed to ensure the safety and welfare of R when in the care of his parents, but that essentially the care of R be provided by the father until the mother's abilities improve. In the early stages when the mother and father were apart, any contact between her and R was to be supervised. In addition the father was to seek help and support from family and friends, including the provision of respite care. There were to be announced and unannounced visits to R by social services, including late night and early calls by members of the emergency duty team. The mother was not a formal signatory to that document.
- For the avoidance of doubt, I find as a fact that the father's allegation that on one occasion the mother did leave R alone in the flat when very young is true. She did not realise that this was unacceptable in terms of this culture's approach to child care. She has denied leaving R in her oral evidence, but I was impressed by the evidence of the neighbour (Mrs. ST) referred to above, who told me that she had met the mother when the latter was coming home, and discovered that R had been left. The mother lied to her by saying that she had just been to the doctor's surgery, although that establishment lay in the opposite direction from which the mother had come. It follows that the mother also lied to me in order to protect herself, or her image of herself as a faultless mother.
- I reject the father's allegation that at times she has held R and threatened to drop him if the father did not comply with her requests. I find it incredible that if she had indeed done this in the course of the period when they were living together that she would ever have been entrusted by him with R in any circumstances, and yet he demonstrably did.
- In a document headed "initial assessment record", prepared following an interview with the father on 27th September 2006, the father is recorded as saying that "despite his concerns for his wife, and the non-support from his family and friends, he has no intent of changing his family structure at the moment. He tells me that family members have told him to divorce his wife but this is not an option for him. He feels that he is responsible for her as he brought her to the United Kingdom". (2:D:7). I have already given my view earlier that cultural pressures on the father militated against a divorce. I do not accept Mrs. Crowley's submission that the weight of the evidence suggests that whatever may be the cultural position in Iran, in Iraq there is less stigma attaching to divorce, and as long as both parties walk away from the table with honour it is not a major issue. Both of these families, in their different ways, are deeply enmeshed in traditional views of what is proper and what is not. There are examples of this applicable to the paternal family littered throughout this judgment. See immediately below for what the father says was the mother's position shortly after this interview.
- The evidence establishes to my satisfaction that neither of these spouses was happy about the state of the marriage in the early part of 2007. In the course of his oral evidence the father distanced himself from any notion that he was contemplating a divorce at this stage, but I do not believe him. For whatever reason I believe he was by this time thoroughly disenchanted with his married life, and had decided that it should end whenever he could properly bring that about. I shall give my reasoning below.
- I do not accept his evidence that it was his wife who raised first the question of divorce. He speaks of her so doing in the presence of his older brother A and that man's wife F, and a third person O, in about October 2006. He suggests that she was so disenchanted with his failure to obtain larger council accommodation and large quantities of money for her family that when she realised he was not going to be able to provide any for her she started lobbying for a divorce. He says that he did not wish to have one and loved her. This purported conversation in October 2006 is not long after the interview referred to above taking place on 27th September 2006. The reasons given for continuing with the marriage are quite different in each one. I find that if anything was driving him at this stage it was some sense of family duty, and he was far from love. The overall weight of his evidence to me is that by this stage life with her was insupportable. I find that the impulse to divorce came from him. I shall say more of this later.
- At the start of 2007, it is the father's case that the mother's mental health was deteriorating to such a degree because of her life in this country that he had "no option but to agree to her return" to Iran. There is a dispute as to whether or not he told her family that she had been suffering from mental health problems in England. Her family deny being informed of any such problem, even though by this time she had spent a period in the unit in the Maudsley Hospital, and was the subject of non-statutory supervision of a high order from social services.
- It is his account that he did tell them, and in particular the maternal grandmother. He had no reason to be secretive, because the mother had allegedly told her nephew, and her cousin here, and they told the family back in Iran. If he is right, then it is at its lowest a curiosity that her mental health problems do not feature in his list of complaints about her at the first family meeting in March 2007 (see paragraphs 209 to 212 below). I disbelieve him.
- He says that she went back to Iran for three months or until she was better, whichever was the latter. He says he had wanted her to receive love and support from her own family as well as to visit his. She says it was for a three month holiday and nothing to do with a mental health problem from which she did not suffer. It is a further oddity of his case that if he believed, as he purports to have done, that the mother was a real danger to R, and could not be left unsupervised with him (see his agreement with the local authority dated 3rd November 2006), that he put the mother and R on an aeroplane unaccompanied for a four hour flight. It was his evidence to me that he took her to the airport, that she was to be met at the other end, and that in his experience he had seen cabin crew assist in the care of children where mothers were unwell. Notably absent from this part of his evidence was any suggestion that he had drawn any potential problem (if indeed one ever existed) to the attention of the airline and/or staff so that they could keep an eye on this mother. I do, however, find that he was indeed concerned about her mental health at this time, and am so persuaded in particular by the evidence of Mrs. ST who told me that he had expressed his concerns to her about the mother's mental health problems, and particularly at this time of the mother's return to Iran. I found, as I have made clear above, Mrs. ST to be a thoroughly honest and compelling witness. This concern may be attributable to his worry about her having any part in the care of R and the need for her to be supervised when back in Iran. It may have been borne of his anxiety to ship her back to Iran, and that he was worried that she would not be allowed on the aeroplane. This area was not explored in detail in evidence, and I make no finding as to why he expressed his worry to Mrs. ST.
- Is it a coincidence that her two-year spousal visa ended in February 2007? Without making further application she could not of course get back to this country. Had he sent her to "park" her? He repeated at this point in his oral evidence that he had no idea about the duration of her visa, a part of his evidence which I have found frankly incredible. I have no doubt he knew the period and that this was no coincidence.
- There came a stage when she left Iran and went to the father's family in Iraq. I accept the evidence that many in the father's family noted a change in the mother's presentation and affect. She appeared to be neglectful of herself, had put on weight, and was aloof. She spent long periods alone in her room. I also accept the evidence that in this period she was having trouble caring for R on her own, and in the various houses she stayed at R's paternal relatives assisted in his care.
- The paternal grandfather states in both his written and oral evidence that he was worried about his daughter-in-law's appearance and apparent state of poor mental health. He suggested to her that she go to see a doctor, and, as she told me, she agreed. It is her case that this was a "put-up" job, the paternal grandfather and the doctor being old friends, and the doctor being persuaded by the father-in-law to give a false diagnosis of mental health problems. The paternal grandfather told me that whilst he knew this man and respected him in a professional context, they were not old friends, and no such request had been made of the doctor. The advice from the medic was that electro-convulsive therapy be administered. It was a suggestion rejected by the maternal family when they were consulted by the paternal grandfather. I prefer the paternal grandfather's account of this visit and accept that he raised it with the maternal family in the way he described. This was, I find, the first they knew of such current problems. I add only that the paternal grandfather told me that the doctor advised that the mother should not be left alone with R who would be at risk from her in her then mental state. I make no finding in respect of this suggestion.
- This took place in Iraq some time in March 2007. The mother alleges that she had been staying with the paternal family for four days before this meeting occurred, and in that period had been subjected to repeated brutal rapes in which the paternal grandmother and an aunt conspired. The mother says that on the fourth night of such behaviour, the father no longer wanted to have sexual intercourse with her, and indicated that what he really wanted was a divorce. I simply record those assertions without making any findings either way in respect of them.
- The meeting was convened by the father's relatives, and the mother's father and brother J attended also. The mother and father, each of their fathers, and a number of other witnesses on the father's side give almost impenetrable evidence about what occurred at this meeting. I am satisfied, and do not feel the need to go beyond this, that the father had an opportunity to present his litany of complaints which included the mother's failure to look after him, and their home properly, and that she was a bad mother to R, failing in her practical and emotional duties to their son, but, as noted above, made no reference to her mental health. I so find in the face of the mother's denial that issues arose relating to her child-care. It is clear from his evidence (accepted by me) that he went carefully prepared for this meeting, although elsewhere in his evidence he says that the meeting had not been a long-planned one. His preparations included taking a broken remote control device for a television set, broken he asserts by her in a spasm of temper when she could not get her own way, and also a copy of the agreement reached by him with Social Services which in summary provided that he would not leave the mother alone with R.
- It is also clear to me that the mother was given very little opportunity to state her side of the matter, although she did in due course voice some complaints about the father. These did not include allegations of physical or sexual assault. I can well understand why not, for it is also very clear that her own family, her brother J in particular, thought that she was significantly at fault in causing marital problems, and culturally she found it excruciatingly difficult to speak of these things.
- The father says that there was no mention of divorce at this first meeting, but I prefer the evidence of the mother's father on this subject, and find that towards the end of the meeting there was indeed a "heated argument between the two families" culminating in both the father and his father stating that there would be a divorce. This incensed both the mother's father and her brother J. That last-named individual is, as I noted above, described in the papers as being hot-tempered, unstable, and given to making threats including threats of violence. I am satisfied that at this meeting he initially threatened his own sister and at the conclusion of the meeting threatened to kill the father. It is abundantly clear from the mother's father's evidence that her side of the family considered (initially at least) that she was at fault for the marital tribulations. Her father-in-law wanted her to go to Iran and leave R with them in Iraq. Her father rejected this proposal. He wanted her and R to go with him to Iran, and he would then send her and the child back to England. For whatever reason, which remains opaque to me, the father did not pronounce a Talaq at that time. Perhaps it was a recognition that such an act would irrevocably fracture the relationship between the two families.
- The mother then spent a period in both Iraq and Iran. R remained in the care of the paternal family, whilst his mother went back to her own family. There is a dispute as to whether R was retained by the paternal family against her will. There is a further dispute as to whether or not the mother had to threaten the paternal family in order to have R returned to her. I make no finding either way in respect of this period, save that I do note that once again the mother has given a series of conflicting accounts about this period, why she moved between the two countries, and the way in which R came back into her care.
- In about May 2007 a second meeting took place at the home of Aunt M. The father and both his parents were present, Aunt M, Aunt NAA and her son, and the mother's father and her brother H.
- This meeting seems to have been about the practical arrangements concerning where the mother and R should live. It was quite clear that the father did not want the mother to return to the United Kingdom, that his own family still wanted her and R to remain under their eye in Iraq, and that she and her father were extremely keen that she returned to the United Kingdom with R and her husband. There was also some talk about a divorce although nothing was concluded. Both the father and his aunt NAA spoke of this, both in print and orally. Overall my sense of it is that the father was indeed questioning how the mother could return to the United Kingdom if they were divorced, but in the context of a discussion about giving her a period to recover her health for family pressure was still in favour of struggling on, against his clear wishes. Was this duplicitous on his part, for I have already noted that by January 2007 it seems to me that he was unhappy within this marriage. I find that he had decided to end his marriage but had at this point taken no formal steps, because of that family's pressures. The mother in her statement of May 2010 says this:
- Following that meeting she and R stayed on in the father's family home in Iraq. After a period she left and went back to Iran, but without R who remained in Iraq at the insistence of the father's father. She says, and I accept, that she gave her parents a comparatively full account (but without mentioning sexual assaults to them) of her life in England, it being a taboo in her culture to speak of these things. She had told her mother of some of her allegations, but her mother had quietened her informing her that these were private matters between her and her husband. She also says that, at this stage, she told her parents about what the father had required her to do in lying to the English authorities concerning her mental health problems. Her father was absolutely furious with her for what he regarded as her incredible stupidity in joining with the father in what he thinks was a huge deception on the authorities. Her father said he would nevertheless help her financially and attempt to get her a visa, so she could return to England once she had collected R from Iraq. He insisted, however, that she report the father's behaviour to the police once she was back in England. Having heard her and her father I accept this part of their evidence. She returned to Iraq some two weeks later at about the end of May 2007, collected R and went back to Iran. There are once again conflicting accounts of how it came about that she was allowed to remove R from the paternal grandparents' home. I make no finding either way in respect of this matter.
- I note her evidence, and accept, that she had by this time told the father that she was pregnant again. In due course her father raised money by selling a tractor and by other means to pay for her and R's flights to return to London. She arrived with R and found her way to their home in Croydon. The father (as he agrees) was shocked and in addition I find appalled to see her. He had thought himself free of her.
- Why did she go back to the home of a man who, on her account, was brutalising her in the way she described above? In what I found to be a telling and compelling part of her evidence she told me that her plight was a stark one. She could not return to her own family who would have rejected her whether divorced or not, and could not live alone in either Iran or Iraq without any means. Nor could she remain, divorced or otherwise, in the father's family home in Iraq. Thus her only option was to go back to him. Furthermore, she was, as noted above, pregnant by him and carrying his second child. Her father had no investment in her remaining in Iran with them. He wanted her to go back to her husband. She had no choice.
- The mother had been fitted with a coil as prophylaxis. This had been done in 2006, but was subsequently removed because she believed that she had suffered ill-health as a result of this device. Having established that she was not pregnant she sought an alternative form of prophylaxis and was fitted with an implant to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Her brother K's wife then suggested that the ill-health which followed this procedure might be because she was pregnant, and so she had the implant removed. A doctor carried out the removal. She was indeed pregnant following sexual intercourse with the father probably in early 2007. There is a dispute as to whether or not that pregnancy was terminated with her consent. She says she did not agree and he says the contrary. At one stage of her account she told me that he had promised to punch her in the stomach if she did not consent to a termination. The documents from the Marie Stopes clinic which carried out the procedure do not reveal very much detail on this subject. Thus I have to determine the issue on the basis of the oral evidence. The mother had just returned from Iran to a husband who, on the face of it, did not want her to be there. I shall describe in a moment what she says was a surprising change in his behaviour shortly after her return, but at this stage note that within days of her returning she had an appointment at the general practitioner to discuss options including a termination. Thereafter she was very swiftly referred to the Marie Stopes clinic, and attended it with the father. There was no independent interpreter. Thus, this young woman, still unable to speak the language with any facility, if at all, had to discuss as best she could these intimate issues involving fine points of consent in the presence of the father who, I find, did not want a second child by this mother. I have no doubt at all that this pregnancy was terminated as a result of the father's decision imposed upon the mother. I have no doubt at all that he had set his face against such a further responsibility and commitment. Accordingly, I reject his evidence that the mother told him that she had had such a bad time during the first pregnancy, and at the time of the birth of R, that she did not want another child. In the witness box he was wholly unconvincing as he tried to persuade me that he had taken no real part in the discussion, had not assisted the mother in filling out the relevant forms, and indeed had barely entered the front door of the building save to deposit her at reception. I did not believe a word of his account. I have no doubt at all that he was the interpreter, and that she was under enormous pressure from him. He, by this stage, was anxious to break ties with her, and I find he did not want the complication of a further child, and the obligations both to the child and to her which would come with it.
- Within days of the termination, and in a period following her return when, much to her surprise, he appeared to have changed his behaviour and attitude towards her and was attentive, he announced to her that they would take a short holiday in Germany to help her get over the termination, and to have a fresh start. On the first day of his oral evidence he seemed to agree that there had been a sea-change in their relationship and that they were both trying hard to be nice to each other. However, on the second day of his evidence, when asked to confirm that the above was accurate, he changed tack altogether and described the mother as "difficult, critical and argumentative" almost from the start. This, unhappily, is not the only example of a change of evidence relating to this period, for in her ABE interview the mother had described the father as being ill-tempered and badly behaved towards her at this time, clearly not wanting her back. Neither party is entirely credible as to the temperature between them at this period, but overall I am inclined to think that the father was acting deviously and putting on a good show for her in order to facilitate what I find followed. Nevertheless he did agree that he had attempted to arrange a holiday in Germany as part of his attempt to keep the marriage alive.
- Accordingly, they went to the airport to board an aeroplane to Germany. In cross-examination he told me this was to stay with relatives, although he could barely remember their names, could not remember the name of the airport they were going to, and could not remember the name of the town they lived in. This unaccountable failure of memory (if such it was) occurred during his second day of oral evidence. He continued giving evidence on a third day, having had ample opportunity to make his enquiries overnight. He did not proffer any information in relation to this family or any of the above details. Nor was he re-examined on that information, probably wisely.
- The German trip did not take place because her passport/visa was not in order and she was not allowed to mount the aeroplane. They returned to the family home. It is his account that at this point she became extremely argumentative, was unhappy at the failure of the German holiday, and began to lobby heavily for a divorce. He tried to persuade me that such was her anger and irritation at the failure of this holiday that she would brook no opposition to a return to Iran, and there they would go their separate ways.
- It was put to him in cross-examination that what he was going to do was take the mother and R to Germany, and there abandon her. He denied this. Whilst I think it probable that the mother was cross that the German trip had not taken place, I did not believe the father's account of what followed, particularly what he says about her being the prime instigator of a return to Iran for the purposes of separation. See below for further consideration of this issue. I find, as a probability, that he was taking her to Germany to leave her there, defenceless and abandoned.
- She told me that in fact he was still (even after the failure to get to Germany) behaving very nicely towards her and suggested that they go on a trip to Iran. I shall consider the evidence in relation to this in more detail immediately below.
- I have already referred to this period but feel it necessary to re-visit it and, in part repeat, the history as given by these parties, such is its importance. There is a passage in the affidavit of the mother's solicitor (Ms. Anne-Marie Hutchinson) where, based on her instructions from the mother, the mother asserts that on or about 28th August 2007 the father forced the mother and R to travel to Iran. There is contradictory evidence from the mother about this period, for she told me, as I noted above, that the father was being surprisingly pleasant to her on her return to the United Kingdom, once he had got over his shock. After the failure of the German trip he then suggested that he would take her on a surprise trip to Iran to show her some of the beauties of that country which she had not hitherto seen. He wanted her to keep it secret between themselves so that her own family and indeed his were not informed of this journey. She went along with him although she wondered if he was plotting something when he made many telephone calls to what she believed were members of her family en route to the airport. Her account about this trip is not that she was forced to go to Iran at all, but that she went consensually for what she hoped would be a holiday. I have, after considering this change of tone, finally come to the conclusion that there was a mis-understanding as between her and Ms. Hutchinson when the latter was drafting the first affidavit, and that this was not a fundamental change of account by the mother.
- The father's evidence that they were to return at her behest for a consensual separation, and that the families were informed of the journey, her own family being on notice that she was to be collected from Meriwan (see below) is evidence which I reject. He gave, in my view, wholly inconsistent evidence about their discussions leading to a return. He told me in his oral evidence that the mother had been extremely argumentative before they left London following the failure of the German holiday (as she perceived it to be). She had taunted him, complained about his inability to provide a greater standard of living, etc. They had agreed to divorce. As for the care of R, he told me that it was at this stage that she ceded R to the care of the father and his family because she did not wish to be encumbered with the child. It was his latter evidence that they were still discussing the care of R as an undecided question following their return, for he told me of conversations which he said had occurred in the hotel in Meriwan. I did not believe him as to either set of conversations, the internal inconsistency being too great, as well as finding his presentation of this evidence in the witness box completely unconvincing.
- Once there they took an internal flight to the Iraqi border, and spent the night in an hotel. It is alleged that the father administered drugs (possibly a sleeping pill) to the mother telling her it was pain killer for her headache, and she fell asleep. There is some inconsistent evidence from her as to whether or not it was one pill or two, and certainly in one part of the evidence the father refers to the taxi driver they used providing a pill and not him at all. I reject his evidence and accept the fact that at some stage he provided her with a pill which rendered her sleepy.
- She woke to find herself tied to the bed by her legs and wrists. Once she had freed herself she found that neither the father nor R were present. The father had, in leaving the hotel surreptitiously, persuaded the hotelier to part with the passports of all members of the family including hers. She nevertheless managed to return to Iraq and to the home of the father's parents, where she found both the father and her son. That family threatened to kill her, she was beaten, pushed to the ground and kicked, and forced to sign a document giving custody of R to the father. It is alleged in Ms. Hutchinson's statement that the paternal family threatened to kill R in front of the mother, and had a gun pointed at the little boy's throat. Her father-in-law is said to have threatened that he would kill the child unless she left and did not return. She left.
- In her own statement of 8th April 2009, the mother deals with this in extensive detail (see section C pages 48 to 49). In this document she refers to the administration of a sleeping pill, but makes no reference at all to being tied up. However, in her recent statement of May 2010 she does advert to this, speaking of her hands and legs being tied to the bed with the father's belt. When she cried out, the hotel staff came and released her.
- Exhibited to the statement of her brother K, who also gave evidence to me via an audio link and through an interpreter, is a translated document dated 15th March 2008. According to this witness it was obtained at the request of the mother following her return to England in February 2008. I remind myself of the mother's evidence that her own father was requiring her at this point in the chronology to make complaint to the English authorities about the father's behaviour and to get R back, which she was doing. The document was probably produced to support the mother's complaint to the police in England made about this time. There is no suggestion on the father's part that this document is a falsely manufactured one, and in particular no such suggestion was made to K when he was cross-examined. I accept K's evidence and consider the document to be a reasonably reliable account of these events in its essential particulars. This document, in significant respects, confirms the mother's evidence about her abandonment. It describes her being found helpless after she cried out, and that when she left the next day she was still worried and crying, and bore the visible mark of a "blow" on her face. [N.B. I accept the evidence also of her brother H to her brother K that the former found that the mother had bruised wrists when he subsequently saw her]. In the course of those passages she also describes how the hotelier allowed her to speak by telephone (corroborated by the hotelier) to her family (the individuals are unspecified) who were very angry with her and said "that if you come back to us we will kill you, we do not want a stupid girl like you". The mother's father denied that he had spoken to her on that day, as did her brother K. Thus there is a question as to whom it was she spoke. Whether or not the mother has the chronology quite right in relation to telephone calls and to whom she spoke on which occasions, I am fully persuaded by the evidence I have heard that indeed her own family were extremely angry with her, for as described above, her father had made considerable financial sacrifices to raise the money to pay for her return to the United Kingdom about late July 2007, only to find that she had returned to Iran and been duped by her husband. Her own father was so cross with her that I find he did indeed decline at that stage to help her. Both K and the maternal grandfather gave evidence about this. Both were still incensed by what they regarded as her stupidity. The brother K spoke of this day, calling it the worst one of his life. It seems to me, however, that this description related in part at least to the disruption of his own social arrangements caused by the telephone call, as well as his overwhelming anger at his sister. As I have noted above the mother is, in my view, inconsistent as to details, and although she refers to her own father being spoken to by her from the hotel he denies any such conversation, and I am more inclined to accept his evidence on this than hers. I do not think that her unreliability on this point overall infects her evidence as to the essential matters on this subject in any serious way.
- Finally, I reject the suggestion made in Mrs. Crowley's closing submissions that the mother has created this "fantasy picture" of her abandonment in order to present herself to her own family as a victim. If that were her intent, one only has to look at the way her family (for the most part) responded to see that that such an endeavour failed woefully.
- In addition, I reject the submission of Mrs. Crowley, in the context of her consideration of death threats, their existence, and whether they would ever be put into effect if they existed, that if the father had at any stage wanted to kill the mother he could have done so in any number of locations, for example the hotel on Meriwan. I regard that last suggestion as illustrating the flaw in this submission: in none of the places visited by this couple were they unknown, or at least unidentified. Although they were not known intimately to the hotelier in Meriwan their respective passports had been handed over to the staff, and as is consistent with many destinations throughout the world their details would have been carefully noted in the hotel records, thus making them easily traceable. That would not be a place to commit a murder.
- Although a version of this appears above in the section dealing with what she told Dr. Wilkins I shall re-visit it in more detail here. It is her evidence that she took matters into her own hands and went to stay with a person who aided her. She then went to see her father-in-law, demanding to see R. The father and his own mother were present and "beat her up" calling her a whore and asking "why have you come to get someone else's child. He is not your son, he is ours". Her father-in-law pointed a gun at her threatening to kill her if she did not leave. She was told before leaving that she must sign something but was not told the content of it, although she feared it was something to do with R. She put her thumb print to the document only because a gun was at her neck. It was on this occasion that she alleges she was given a copy of the purported "agreement" to which I refer below. When she asked to see her son "they" put a gun to the boy's neck and threatened to kill him if she did not leave. She denies that representatives of the two families were present when an allegedly consensual agreement was reached. I shall set out my findings on this account later.
- One of the many puzzles in this case, particularly when considering the mother's actions, and her credibility in her descriptions of those alleged actions, is that, on a number of occasions, even when she says she is the subject of death threats from the father's family, she walks into the lion's den. The visit she made to the father's family home, allegedly in pursuit of her son, and when she says she was facing a real risk to her life, is a striking example. Were these acts of hers (if true) driven by desperation to retrieve her son? Or do they suggest that there was no risk at all because there were no threats to her, and no acts by the father or members of his family which might suggest she was at risk? Or is there some other explanation (see below for my findings)?
- Once again there is dispute as to how the mother arrived at the venue for this meeting. Was she transported by the paternal grandfather having spent a little while with his family in Erbil? Or did she travel there in some other way, possibly from Iran with her father and brother? I can make no finding in respect of this conflict.
- There are diametrically opposed accounts of how it came about that the documents (for there are two such documents to consider one of which bears the mother's thumb print and the signatures of her father and her brother J) came into being, purportedly agreeing to financial arrangements consequent upon a divorce, and as to the care of R. I have given the mother's version above in paragraph 233
- In his first statement of March 2009, the father describes in brief terms how he decided, in view of her mental health problems and her failure to take her medication, that he could not cope any longer and would divorce the mother. He says that the maternal grandfather and J travelled to Iraq, and that, at the third family meeting, he pronounced the Talaq in front of both his and her families. He did this even though the two families were not on good terms. A settlement of divorce was arranged whereby he handed over money (US$ 10,000) to her and a property. He alleges that it was further agreed that he would be R's main carer and that R would stay with him in Iraq. [In relation to the pronouncement of a Talaq he is inconsistent in his evidence, for although he has given the above account in writing he later changed his evidence orally and said the witnesses were not present at the time, and that the Talaq was pronounced only in front of his family. Thus, even leaving aside the change of account, on the second version there are no objective witnesses to speak to this.]
- It is agreed evidence that at this third family meeting the mother was in or near the building in which discussions took place, although it does not seem to me that she played any significant, if any, part in the discussions. The maternal grandfather and the mother's brother J were present. It was suggested in oral evidence by one of the father's witnesses that her father and/or brother were telephoning her at regular intervals to discuss aspects of the purported agreement. I regard this as wholly improbable and reject it. In these families, as is agreed, it is the men who sit round and negotiate. The women are not consulted, even though the discussions affect them profoundly.
- J has not given evidence in these proceedings. The answer to that omission is perhaps the obvious dislike of the mother for J whenever she spoke of him. Thus, her legal team would be dissuaded, at its lowest, from approaching him. The mother's dislike is allegedly based on her childhood memories of him, but in more recent times upon his aggressive temperament, and his direct threats to her own safety and indeed her life at the first meeting by way of example (see above). The omission is, forensically, an unhappy one. I have been deprived of assessing the evidence of a crucial witness not only in relation to this purported agreement, but also in relation to alleged threats to kill, and earlier acts said to have been perpetrated by this brother. I have given my speculation as to why he has not been called, but there may well be, as Mrs. Crowley submits, more fundamental reasons than that, namely that he would give an account which fatally undermines the mother. That proposition must, unhappily, remain simply recorded as a speculation.
- If I believe the maternal grandfather's evidence on the subject, he went to this meeting with J in order to work out the practical arrangements for how the mother and R would continue to live together. The evidence of the maternal grandfather is that whilst there was some loose talk of divorce nothing was concluded. He went on to say at one stage of his evidence that he was not present when the sum of $US10,000 was discussed as part of a divorce settlement, and at other parts of his evidence saying that he was present but that no agreement on the principle let alone the amount had been finalised. It is suggested by all that there was some discussion of a shop as part of the divorce settlement, although again the position is not pellucid. It is said by the father that a shop was purchased (I am not clear in whose name) with part of the mother's wedding jewellery which had been given to her on her marriage, but sold in order to acquire this property. This has never been clarified to my satisfaction. Yet both the shop and the sum in dollars appear to have been on the table in some sense at some stage, possibly only in the presence of J. I regret that the opacity of these talks does not support any clearer finding.
- The maternal grandfather told me that he left when discussions were anything but detailed, and that although J remained in the area for two days that was so that he could conduct business of his own.
- It follows from this account of the maternal grandfather, if I believe it, that there were no concluded discussions, and accordingly there could be no possibility of a concluded and signed agreement. He was also very clear that no Talaq was pronounced in his presence contrary to the father's written account, and there was no agreement as to the care of R.
- I have seen two versions of the purported signed agreement. One of them does not have any form of signature next to the name of the maternal grandfather and bears no thumb-print. This is the copy which emanated from the mother. The other version of the document I have seen does have a signature next to the maternal grandfather's name, and next to that of the brother J, as well as a thumb print purportedly of the mother. As to this latter document both the mother and the maternal grandfather claim it is a forgery, for there was no agreement, and certainly no agreement that R would be raised by the paternal family. The father in his June 2010 statement says of this last alleged term:
- I found myself in some difficulty in trying to follow the way in which the father's team were putting the issue, for at one stage in the course of cross-examining the maternal grandfather Mrs. Crowley suggested to him that he was so angry with his daughter for what she had done in returning to Iran that he had taken a full part in the discussions and that he was punishing her by entering into this agreement surrendering her right to bring up her son. On a subsequent day when the maternal grandfather's evidence was being concluded she put to him as part of the father's case that he was doing his best to protect his "much-loved daughter" by entering into this agreement. I still find myself baffled, despite Mrs. Crowley informing me that she was simply "testing out the waters" with a number of potential theories, how this part of the case is put by him.
- As I have noted above the father's written case, supported by his oral evidence and that of members of his family, is that this was an entirely consensual resolution of the disputes within the family. Part of his case is that this mother expressed in the clearest terms that she did not wish to be encumbered with raising her child, and that this was in part based on the difficulty a divorced woman would have in re-marrying if she came with a child.
- I reject the mother's story of how a document bearing her thumb print came into being. It is a wholly improbable account in my view, and, as Mrs. Crowley points out, for it to be true the paternal grandfather would have had to have known that she was coming to his home (entirely contrary to her evidence that her visit was unannounced), and to have had a document (witnessed by a number of males) ready to hand on the off-chance that she dropped by unescorted and was capable of being forced into signing the document. I have considered whether or not the paternal grandfather might have required her to put her thumbprint at the foot of a blank sheet of paper and filled in a purported agreement and signatures at a later stage, but this does not fit with the mother's evidence either, for she told me in her statement that the document was already made out.
- That there was a third meeting I do not doubt. Whatever the maternal grandfather believed to be its purpose in travelling towards it, I have no doubt it turned into a meeting about a divorce, and that in his presence there was certainly discussion of the sum of US$10,000. But was he a witness to more?
- What do I make of the maternal grandfather's claims that the document purportedly bearing his signature is fraudulent, and that his purported signature is demonstrably a forgery. This is a very difficult part of the evidence, but for the reasons I give below I believed him on both these points.
- It was only in the course of oral evidence that one of the father's witnesses (ABAH) said that there had been a hand-written document signed by the 16 witnesses who had attended the meeting (although the mother's thumbprint was not on it) but that this document was not available, probably going the way of many a draft document once the concluded agreement was available and executed. That manuscript draft was sent down to the town to be typed, this exercise taking over an hour. Those present at the meeting then dispersed, and when the document returned that witness did not see any other witness sign, for it had been couriered around them and signed by each one as it came his way. He was the last to sign, for it already had 15 signatures on it. It did not, by that stage, have the mother's thumbprint on it. He said that all these signatures were collected by a man (O) who has not made a statement and not given oral evidence. All this was achieved in a period of two hours and on one day. I find that a wholly incredible account, and it casts real doubt on other versions I have heard.
- In addition the father's oral and written evidence has made no mention of two documents (a draft and an executed one). He told me in his oral evidence that the signatures of the maternal grandfather and J upon this document were not made until the following day when the mother had been paid the US$10,000. These two above accounts are, in my view, wholly inconsistent.
- Apart from anything else, it seems to me wholly inconsistent with the father's case that this was a consensual arrangement that the mother should have fought so hard to get back to the United Kingdom in February 2008 and make immediate complaint to the authorities, and then to bring proceedings to secure the return to her of her son if she has consensually given him up. Furthermore, it is more consistent with families who believe in "honour", including honouring agreements, that if there had indeed been an agreement that she be divorced on the above terms, her own father would have been the first to tell me. Yet he consistently supports her in this if in nothing else, and twice in concluding passages of his oral evidence begs this court to secure the return of her son to her. This does not sound like a consensual divorce to me, and I accordingly accept that on the balance of probabilities, although I have had no handwriting expert testimony in relation to the signatures, that the document purportedly signed by the maternal grandfather and J is an ex post facto artefact and at least in relation to the first-named signatory, a forgery.
- I have considered the possibility that J, who remained behind for two days after the maternal grandfather left, might have concluded an agreement on his sister's behalf. I do not believe that to be the case, for in this culture, given the importance of the issues at stake, I do not believe J would have had the authority so to do without referring to his own father, and I accept that he did not so consult. This was far too important a matter with huge ramifications for both families, and in any event would not account for the grandfather's signature.
- I am further fortified in my findings in relation to this purported agreement by the father's wholly unsatisfactory evidence on the subject of his purported compliance with the terms of the agreement. He told me, although he gave inconsistent evidence about it, that he had raised the money partly through his brother A, and partly through the usual informal arrangements with "friends" in the Kurdish community in England. He could give no sensible account of raising this money, from whom, when, and when, if at all, he had made repayments. There was no documentary evidence to support his account that the sum had been wired at short notice to Iraq. He told me that the agreement had been negotiated and the terms consented to on what I shall call "day one", but that the agreement did not come into effect until "day two", he having been given a deadline of 10:00am on day two to provide the money. Once he had given the cash the mother "signed" with her thumbprint. Had he indeed had such a sum wired, it would have been open to him to produce documentary evidence to support a transfer of such a significant sum of money on the relevant day. No such documentary evidence has been provided. No evidence from any of the "friends" has been provided. His brother A gave evidence, and gave no, or no satisfactory account of this period. Nor have I seen any documents to support the transfer of ownership of land in the form of a shop. I simply do not believe the father's account on this subject. Even were he to produce such documentation it would not change my view in relation to my finding in paragraph 251 above that there was no consensual arrangement as to the future care of R by the father and/or members of his family.
- I make no finding as to the history of the documents produced by the mother but note that a number of signatures on it, (that of her father and one other witness) are missing although it is purportedly witnessed by J.
- I conclude this part of the judgment by observing that the evidence on this whole issue, in common with many of the other issues in the case, initially gave me the sensation of walking through a room full of smoke and mirrors. I have come to the above conclusions solely on the balance of probabilities after much careful thought.
- It is part of the father's case that a number of members of the mother's wider family have been divorced. In support of her evidence asserting that she has not been divorced, the mother, and some members of her family who gave evidence about the subject, made it abundantly clear that the family did not believe in divorce, and that there was no history of any divorce within their family or previous generations. This issue had not been raised by either side until she gave this evidence. A number of names were put to these witnesses (including the mother's father) and they were all in their answers on this subject in my view consistent with each other. I initially believed them as to the absence of divorce in that family. I found it an odd part of the evidence that the father did not raise this issue until quite so late in the day, for there was nothing in print from him despite many pages of written material until the mother referred to it and one of his witnesses spoke of this subject, the relevant statement being filed towards the end of the second week of the hearing. The maternal grandmother (who was alleged to be a first wife gravely put out by the taking of a second one by the maternal grandfather) was not even asked about these matters when she gave her oral evidence. If it was intended to be relevant to undermining the credibility of the mother's family, it did not at first succeed. It was, I believe, not only thought by him to be relevant to that, but was part of the father's case to support his contention that the maternal family did indeed agree to a divorce taking place because there was no cultural or social shame in a divorce as long as there were good reasons for it.
- However, at the 11th hour a statement was produced by a woman (AQ) purporting to have been the second-taken wife of the maternal grandfather. She gave an account, supplemented by her oral evidence on the penultimate and the last day of oral evidence that she was a 14 year-old servant in the house to whom the grandfather had taken a fancy. He seduced her, she fell pregnant, and he paid the man to whom she had been promised a significant sum of money in order to release her. He then married her whilst she was pregnant. She gave birth to a son (M), now dead from an overdose of opium. The maternal grandmother of R was so put out by this that she left the household and went to live with her sister-in-law and brother. She did not return for a year, having successfully lobbied her husband into rejecting the second wife and son. AQ gave a considerable amount of detail about what followed thereafter, including an agreement that he would pay maintenance which he dishonoured, and ultimately having to take a DNA test to establish paternity. He continued to pay nothing despite her approach to a number of courts. The son did not see his father although attempts were made to effect this. Eventually she re-married and had other children. Although it was not in her statement she spoke in her oral evidence about that son (M) who had wished to take a bride, and who wanted to live in the 'big house' with his father. He made an approach to his father which was rebuffed.
- The maternal grandmother had produced at very short notice a statement in rebuttal, and she too gave oral evidence by audio-link, as had AQ. She denied each and every part of AQ's account, saying that she had been 'put-up' to it by the father or members of his family, and that one could buy anyone for 20 or so US dollars to make a false statement.
- In the course of cross-examination of AQ she was asked a number of questions as to how she had come to be asked to give this statement. She described no approach by members of the father's family, and that the first she had heard of the request to give evidence in London was when a solicitor/interpreter had telephoned her from London requesting a statement on the basis that she believed her to be the second wife of the maternal grandfather of R. She said that on being telephoned she was happy, thinking that finally some justice would be done.
- I listened carefully to her evidence, and the tone was one of long-standing outrage at the way she had been treated as a pregnant girl, and the way she and her son had subsequently been treated. I am sorry to say that her account had the ring of truth. It was compelling in its detail and the manner in which she gave it, although of course I had the disadvantage of not being able to see her. I disbelieved the maternal grandmother in her denials, and find the account of AQ to be a truthful one, save in one respect. I do not believe that the solicitor/interpreter calling from London was the first she knew of this. I have no doubt at all that someone in the father's family, possibly the father himself, was the one to make the approach. They knew she was disenchanted, or likely to be, tracked her and gave the contact details to the father's solicitors in London. I do not think that lie by her undermines her credibility as to the main part of her story. I well-understand the points made by Miss Theis in her closing submissions, and particularly in relation to whether or not there is any real identifying evidence to prove who AQ is, and what her historical links may be to the maternal grandfather. I have the word of Mrs. Crowley that the technical deficiencies of this statement will be put right swiftly, and that a signed and dated copy duly authorised as properly translated to the witness by an interpreter before she signed it, will be made available. On that basis I have treated it as proper evidence in the case, and come to the above conclusions.
- Since I am asked to believe, and accept, that the maternal grandfather is a man of his word, does this late-introduced material undermine that finding? I have come to the conclusion, on fine balance, that overall it does not undermine that finding for the following reason: I consider it more likely than not that his first wife's response to his marriage to this young girl, and her response to the pregnancy leading to the birth of M, was vitriolic, and that he found himself, as he would perceive it, "between a rock and a hard place". In those circumstances he chose wife number one over wife number two, rather than face further rejection by his first wife and the community, and knowing that the young girl and her infant son were powerless to do him much, if any, harm, rejected her and M. I have, for that reason, inevitably based on surmise, made the findings recorded above.
- The above does of course cast a considerable cloud over his credibility, and over the assertion that as a man of his word he honours agreements, in particular the financial agreements said to have been made on behalf of his daughter in the matter of her divorce. Again on fine balance, I do not think it does, although it illustrates that his behaviour is not always impeccable.
- Mrs. Crowley submits that if I find, as I have, the above facts it casts doubt on the credibility of the two brothers H and K, as well as the maternal grandmother who must all have lied. I agree that it has obvious implications for the credibility of the grandmother, but it is the sort of history which families will suppress even amongst themselves, and I remind myself that these events occurred over 40 years ago, when the two brothers H and K would have been very small if born at all. This is not the sort of period that either of the grandparents would have dwelt upon in conversations, and for my part I doubt that the boys, and even less so their much younger sister, would have heard about it. Thus I reject that submission.
- Mrs. Crowley also submits that because a number of these maternal family witnesses were cross-examined as to the existence of other divorces within the family, and they denied them, that I can regard their credibility as suspect in relation to those marriages also. I disagree. There is not the same quality of evidence. The one proven example does not amount to corroboration of mere assertion in relation to the others.
- The mother does not regard herself as having been divorced. She denies any property transactions occurring in consequence of the alleged agreement (see above).
- It is something of a puzzle to me that the mother denies that a divorce has ever taken place. My puzzlement arises from the fact that she felt free to marry the Afghan male referred to below (see paragraphs 300 to 301 and 309 to 310). As far as I am aware her religion and culture do not permit her to take a second spouse unless divorced. I note also that her father (AA) does not believe she has been lawfully divorced either, for he says she did not put her thumb print on the relevant document, has not received any money and, therefore, the divorce is not valid. Neither of her brothers H and K consider her to be divorced. It was the oral evidence of her brother K, when he was asked whether he had heard anything about the mother forming a relationship with another man, that he purported not to know of any such relationship. He added that he would be very angry if she had formed such a relationship because she was married and had not yet been divorced. This family is very clear about the rules.
- Once she had been abandoned by the father in August 2007 (see above) she found herself stuck in Iran. The evidence seems to establish that the only member of her family to see her during the five-moth period before she was able to return to the United Kingdom was her brother H, who in fact provided her with shelter and support. I mentioned earlier Mrs. Crowley's submission that the mother had faked her story about abandonment in Meriwan in order to present herself as a victim, and in order to soften her reception by the family. That H alone provided her with shelter illustrates to my mind why this submission cannot stand. Her brother K, in oral evidence, said that the family knew that H had helped her but did not know that she was staying with him. I accept that evidence, for it seems to me consistent with the family's outrage at recent events, and their own condemnation of her "stupidity", whilst also being consistent with doing nothing to interfere with her return to the United Kingdom. Had he been against the mother returning to the United Kingdom to make complaint to the authorities it would have been open to the maternal grandfather to do all in his power (and I have no doubt with success) to stop her.
- If the alleged consent agreement of September 2007 was indeed truly a consensual document this man would not have brooked any opposition to its enforcement, and if he knew, as I find the family generally knew, that H was aiding her return to the United Kingdom he would have thwarted it. This further persuades me that the September 2007 document was not remotely consensual.
- She had to return to England, but her visa had expired. She told me with clarity that when considering the grant of a fresh visa to her the embassy in Tehran had written to the husband to seek his views on such a grant, and that he had written back saying he did not wish his wife to come to him in the United Kingdom. At least she thought the embassy had written to him. The father's evidence to me was that he wrote to them without prompting. He had heard on the grapevine (I think from the mother's relatives) that she was trying to get back. At the start of his oral evidence this letter was not available but was produced to me subsequently. It is a comprehensive attempt to block her entry back into this country. Not only does he state that he has no wish for her to re-enter, but he says that she has no friends or family with whom she can stay, and does not have enough money to support herself. It points out that R is in Iraq and so she has no reason to enter the United Kingdom. It could not be a clearer declaration of war. He was doing all he could to keep her away, and in part this was no doubt, to thwart any action she may take with the authorities in England to secure the return to her of R. I found her evidence on this subject compelling and have no doubt at all that the husband was doing his best to inhibit her room for manoeuvre for the above reasons. He did not succeed. She had earlier acquired permanent leave to remain referred to earlier. As a coda to this part of the case I heard evidence from Mrs. ST, a neighbour of the father in England. She spoke of his frequent requests for help, they not being friends particularly at that stage, but she feeling her religious and moral duty to help someone in need. I was profoundly impressed by her evidence for many reasons. I did not doubt anything she said. She made concessions against her own behaviour where necessary, and despite the development of her friendship with the father subsequent to February 2008, I do not believe that friendship to have coloured her view of the facts as she recalled them. She told me that the father had come to her in a state of considerable anxiety, having heard that the mother was trying to return. It was she who drafted this letter, and she told me in her oral evidence that it was most unlikely that she consulted him as to its finer points, but drafted it and then got him to sign it. The core information must, however, have come from the father. Either she had picked that up in their recent conversations, or, in particular in relation to the assertion in the letter that the mother had "indefinite leave to remain" in the United Kingdom from the father at the time of drafting. I do not find this belief of his at this stage that she had indefinite leave to remain to support the evidence he gave me that he thought that was her immigration status from the time of her arrival. As I have found above he knew, in my judgment, exactly what her status was following her arrival as a spouse, and when that visa would end. That she had subsequently obtained indefinite leave to remain was also something which, I find, he knew by this stage.
- There is a considerable body of evidence that suggests that the mother's family, particularly her father and brother J, are given to making disturbing (at their lowest) statements. By way of example, in the period following her abandonment in the hotel in Meriwan in August 2007 I accept the evidence that the maternal grandfather and J both said that they would never allow the mother to return to the family home, not even her body, because of the shame she had brought on them. I further prefer the evidence of the maternal grandmother over that of her husband (who denied making the remark set out hereafter), for she spoke against the family's interest in so admitting, and it had the ring of truth: the remark was that if he found out that it was the mother's fault (by virtue of her behaviour) that she had been abandoned, he would kill her.
- By way of further example from the third family meeting is the evidence that I accept that her father said he would prefer the mother to be beaten or killed than divorced if there were not good enough reason for her to be divorced. I also accept the evidence given to me in oral testimony by the maternal grandfather that if it were in his power he would want to kill the father himself for what he believes the father to have done to his daughter, or at the very least see him imprisoned in the United Kingdom. In a subsequent passage of his oral evidence he did withdraw the suggestion that he wanted to kill the father, but the language and nature of the threat is indicative of a pattern of behaviour by him.
- It is the maternal grandfather's evidence that, to cite but one, the father told his son K that he would torture, kill and take the mother's body apart given the opportunity.
- The statements are littered with alleged threats to life and limb. In a late-filed statement the maternal grandmother alleges that a number of members of the paternal family have in recent times made threats to kill, particularly if the mother did not have these proceedings withdrawn. I have made reference above in the course of this judgment to other threats which I find it unnecessary to repeat at this point.
- There is a part of the evidence in this case which relates to a telephone call made by the father (as he agrees it was) to someone known both to him and to the mother with whom he thought the mother would stay when she arrived back in England. It is his case that he was aware before her arrival back in the United Kingdom in February 2008 that she was on her way, and that believing that she would go and stay at this person's home he made a telephone call to her to tell her that he was now divorced from the mother, that he wanted nothing more to do with her, and that he would not change his position on this. It is the evidence of the mother, supported to some extent by contemporaneous recording of a call to the East Sussex Police Force by the recipient of the father's telephone call, that the father's call had been a much more threatening one: he had intimated acts of considerable violence to this person if the mother were granted succour in her home. He also made clear threats of significant acts of violence towards the mother. He was cross-examined extensively on this part of the case, and was wholly unimpressive in my view. I do not feel the need to set out all the matters I rely upon in coming to this conclusion, save to note that once again when any suggestion was made of him threatening violence his pose in the witness box was a comparatively timorous one, and he again carefully modulated his voice to the gentlest of whispers in an attempt to persuade me that such threats were alien to his way of living. I did not believe him, and have no doubt at all that he made such threats to this person both as to her own safety and as to the mother's.
- What are my findings? I restrict myself to making findings in respect of alleged threats to kill the mother, made by her own father and brother, and alleged threats to kill her made by the father and the paternal grandfather.
- I have considered the family dynamics as revealed throughout the course of this hearing, and as revealed in the many statements about them and their lives. In making the findings which follow I should emphasise that I am not making these judgments on any other person (and particularly not in relation to the wider community).
- It is agreed by both sides of this family that historically honour killings, the under-pinning idea of honourable behaviour and what it means to a family that its honour should be upheld, was a dominant feature of that culture. Both families also agree that it is, in their own case, no longer so.
- I have unhappily been driven to the conclusion that this mother's life is at real risk if she were to reveal her identity and location, or be found. I consider that she would be at risk from her own father, her brother J, the paternal grandfather and the father. Whatever their views have been in the past (and they may well have fluctuated from time-to-time) about this mother remaining alive, it is my view, on the evidence, that these proceedings of themselves, involving a minute analysis of these deeply private people who sort out their own affairs, has been a profoundly shocking blow to their pride and sense of honour, such that they would be moved to kill her, or arrange to have her killed. If the maternal family ever discovered the reality of her relationship with the Afghan male (see below) they would regard that, I find, as reason of itself to kill her.
- In relation to the father, I take no comfort from the fact that no known attempt has been made to trace her since the commencement of police enquiries in February 2008, and the instigation of these proceedings. I watched him carefully throughout this hearing; I have noted above his attempt at voice modulation, and his adoption of a timorous presentation in the early stages of his evidence. By the third day he was, in contrast, less able to maintain his composure, and I had a real sense of a deep-rooted anger barely restrained in responding to questions.
- I have thought very carefully about the position of the paternal grandfather, particularly bearing in mind that I do not accept the mother's evidence in relation to, for example, the circumstances in which her thumb print was appended to the document ceding care of R to the paternal family. I have nevertheless, and after reminding myself of the appropriate standard of proof, sadly come to the conclusion that the paternal grandfather has made threats to the life of the mother, and would, more probably than not, have them carried out if he ascertained her whereabouts.
- For the avoidance of doubt, I would add that I find, despite their respective protestations, and despite both of them suggesting that the holding of unlicensed guns by individuals was unlawful in their respective States, that both the maternal and paternal grandfather do have guns. In so finding, I found the evidence of AB once again to be persuasive.
- Following her return to this country in February 2008 the mother made contact with the police. She initially alleged that R had been abducted, and that threats had been made to kill her. It is evidence agreed by the MPS that until she mentioned the name of her murdered cousin BM, the case had apparently been regarded as comparatively low priority. The above connection made them take the suggestion of threats to kill much more seriously.
- I have referred already to her Criminal Justice Act statement, she was interviewed under the ABE procedures. Although she had, quite early on, consented to the production of her medical records (which in this case also include her psychiatric records) they were not made available to the police for reasons beyond the mother's control until after the carrying out of those ABE interviews.
- Anyone reading those interviews would be entitled to raise an eyebrow at aspects of their content. I have already made findings in respect of the improbability of some of her allegations as to the duration and nature of the father's sexual assaults upon her. Mrs. Crowley quite rightly invites my attention to them, and suggests that they are so wholly improbable as to illustrate the nature and extent of the mother's mendacity and fantasising on this and many other subjects.
- Whilst I understand the submission, I believe it goes far too far. I have to bear in mind when looking at this part of the material that, even though I find the mother to be woefully inaccurate in some respects, I remind myself that she was back in this country unaccompanied, with no obvious means of support save acts of friendship from those known to her, but those being of uncertain duration. Furthermore I have illustrated above, and found to be true, the fact that the father made certainly one threat to somebody who had tried to help her.
- There is no evidence contemporaneous with those enquiries and interviews to tell me what the mother's mental state was at the time. That she was acting through an interpreter also could not have helped. For those reasons, whilst I have approached the interviews with the highest degree of caution, I do not think they bear the weight afforded to them as illustrations of Mrs. Crowley's submissions.
- As a footnote I should add that the Crown Prosecution Service, having considered the ABE interviews, and the mother's mental health records, and in the absence of any objective corroboration of the mother's account, decided not to prosecute. I can, if I may respectfully say so, fully understand how they came to that conclusion on the material available to them.
- Where there are proper grounds for believing that Article 2 (1) of the European Convention for The Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 is engaged, the case of Osman v United Kingdom [2000] 29 EHRR 245 established the following principle: that Article 2 requires the State not only to refrain from the intentional and unlawful taking of a life, but also requires it to take appropriate steps to safeguard the lives of those within its jurisdiction.
- Lord Carswell in In Re Officer L [2007] 1 WLR 2135 held that the positive obligation on the State arises when the risk is "real and immediate". He went on to cite with approval Whetherup J, in a Northern Irish case (In Re W's application [2004] NIQB 67), where he observed:
- The MPS, as I noted at the outset of this judgment, have taken the view, after reflecting upon the evidence known to them, to which I have adverted above in detail, and their beliefs arising from analysis of that material, that there is indeed a real and immediate risk to the life of the mother from the father (and/or members of his family). It is fair to the father to add that the MPS have taken the view that the risk does not just arise from the alleged threats made by, and subsequent alleged behaviour of, the father and his family. An entirely separate set of risks (compounding the risk from the father) is said to come from the mother's second husband, and furthermore from one or more of her own brothers for the double "dishonour" she has brought by behaving as she has in relation to both her first and second husbands.
- I should add that in a written statement of the maternal grandmother, and in her oral evidence, she makes wide-ranging and very serious allegations against the paternal grandfather, in particular but not exclusively, the most serious of which are of death threats issued by him against the mother.
- In consequence of their view of the perceived risk to the mother, the police have relocated her on a number of occasions. She has been provided with a number of temporary accommodations. She has also been provided, on more than one occasion, with "permanent" accommodation. Her identity has also been changed on more than one occasion.
- Furthermore, she has been warned in the clearest terms on a number of occasions against revealing her history to those she meets. Of particular, but by no means exclusive, concern to the MPS has been any interaction she has had or may have with members of the Kurdish community. The police, as would anybody viewing objectively such a way of life as the mother's, whether the reason for the living of such a life is valid or otherwise, could not help but be sympathetic to the difficulties of, and loneliness inherent in it. This is particularly so in relation to someone who had lived most of her life in a geographically isolated Iranian village, and in the Kurdish culture, whose language was her first language, and whose cultural, social and religious beliefs have been shaped by that upbringing. Yet if she is not to compromise her safety (assuming for these purposes the risk to be indeed real and immediate) she has to make these sacrifices.
- In assessing this part of the evidence I was helped by the oral evidence of DC B (at one time the officer in the MPS in charge of the enquiry into the allegations of rape and abduction of R) and the mother's own. Although DC B's duties have now transferred him to the child protection team at the MPS, he retained a good working knowledge of this case, and with the aid of contemporary documentation was able to give me considerable detail about the period.
- Unhappily, on a number of occasions, the mother has compromised her security in the most serious fashion. She has been given a number of warnings pursuant to the principles of the decision in Osman v The United Kingdom (see above).
- The first instance was in April 2008 when she was moved to a new location and warned in clear terms not to make her circumstances known to anyone, and furthermore not to contact her relatives, friends or members of the Kurdish community. It follows that she was also clearly warned not to make her location known to them. Part of the warning was to emphasise to her that she would put her life at risk, and may be killed, if she did make such contacts. Furthermore, she put the lives of those around her at risk if she breached any of the guidance.
- Later that same month (18th or 19th April 2008) the MPS became aware that she had formed a relationship with a young man working at the place where she was staying, and that she had told him her full story. Unhappily, they did not find out about this relationship from her but from another source. She was questioned about it and in due course admitted that not only was this accurate information, but that she was having a sexual relationship with him. She had been in this country for only some eight weeks. She was asked about this in oral evidence and denied that there was any sexual intimacy between them. In fact she barely recognised it as a relationship, just a mutual exchange of limited information, mostly by sign language given that neither spoke each other's language, in which she had indicated to this young man that she was married and has a child, and he informed her that his girlfriend had abandoned him, taking their two small children with her. I regret to say I do not think she was telling me the whole truth about this relationship, nor indeed was she telling me the truth when she denied that it was a sexual relationship. I do not know if she lied from shame or for some other reason. She was told she had to move but resisted it. According to DC B she had no trouble telling the MPS her views, DC B describing her as "a petulant child". She was frank enough to admit in the witness box that, particularly at this period, she was indeed behaving like a child. It was made clear to her that she had no choice and she accordingly moved. The warnings were repeated.
- The MPS also discovered that she was having prohibited meetings with people she had been told to avoid contacting. The police monitored telephone calls on her mobile telephone, but they hold the firm belief that she also had a secret telephone which they were not told about, and which she used to make contact with others. It is DC B's view that she lied to them. Eventually, on close questioning, she would end up confessing. Whether or not she had a secret telephone it is clear to me from the evidence of her brother H, which I accept on this point, that she did make a call to him even though the police had not authorised it.
- By 16th May 2008 she was telling DC B that she was fed-up with the enquiry, and said that she would make contact with the father and tell him to come and kill her. DC B describes her as having "tantrums". Furthermore, she did not, in his opinion, show the level of fear he would have expected if she really was afraid of her husband, and it was his personal opinion that she was trying to manipulate the MPS. See below for my finding as to her presentation generally.
- On 1st July 2008 the MPS discovered that she was in a relationship with an Afghan male, and that he frequented a mosque, even though she lied to the MPS initially by saying that he had no such connection with it. It would appear that this relationship had begun approximately 10 days prior to the interview. She was warned that should her circumstances become known through this man to those attending the mosque, or to any of them, there was a risk it would seep into the wider Kurdish community exacerbating the risks spoken of above. She was advised to discontinue the relationship. She had already been moved at very short notice after the discovery of her relationship with the male referred to above, and knew, or must have known, of the risks to which she was putting herself and others. She promised that she would stop seeing this Afghan male.
- Later that same month (15th July 2008) yet another warning was given when she told the police she wanted to leave the accommodation she was in to live with the above-mentioned Afghan male with whom she was by then in an intimate relationship. She had clearly disobeyed the advice given on 1st July.
- On 24th July 2008 she received yet another warning when she told the MPS that she would go looking for her son R in Thornton Heath, and also demanded that the MPS return her passport so that she could fly to Iraq to search for her son. As DC B told me in oral evidence, her passport was readily accessible to her in one sense, for in each of the accommodations provided for her it was lodged with those who had some oversight of her, and she could have requested it from them. Further evidence did put a slight gloss on this to the extent that she had, on this occasion, asked for the return of it, but was told to consult the police first, and it was this advice which led to her exchanges with DC B on this date. Not for the first time one has to ask whether this is the act of someone who is truly afraid, and whether or not it casts some light on the genuineness or otherwise of any purported death threats. She made it clear that she was bored and frustrated, particularly when she was advised yet again to avoid her own community. After several days of seeking her passport she began to ask for money to return to Iraq. This request was declined. The warnings were repeated.
- On 5th November she was telling DC B that she wished to be released from the safety arrangements and go her own way. When he sat with her, drew out a piece of paper and a pen, and began to write a statement on her behalf indicating that this was her wish, she quickly backed-off.
- Later in November 2008 the mother told the MPS that she has met an Iranian shop owner in the area in which she was then living and had told her entire life story to that shop owner. She had thus put herself at risk once again, and said that she was now frightened in consequence. She was moved to a new address. She was given a further Osman warning.
- Yet in that very same month, after these events, she told the MPS that she had spent a weekend at a friend's house in London, and that this friend and her family knew the father. Only shortly before this trip two members of the MPS had visited the mother, and when she spoke of wanting a two week holiday in the home of the friend above-referred to, and that she had already contacted that friend by telephone (a course of action she had been strongly warned against on earlier occasions) she was told in clear terms that she faced danger if she did indeed visit that friend. She was further told that those who seek to harm her could find out about her visit, and she could face physical injury and possibly death. Both of the officers on that occasion repeated their warning. She assured them that she understood what they had said and accepted their warnings.
- It thus understandably astonished and appalled the MPS when she spoke to them of this weekend trip made to the very same friend. She said that she had made the visit because she was lonely. She was warned after the visit that, by making it, she had endangered herself, her friend and her friend's family, although the mother responded that she had put no-one in danger, and that her friend had promised not to tell anyone about the visit. The MPS visited the friend and discovered that the stay had lasted not just for a weekend but for a period of about 10 days. She had told those with whom she was then accommodated that her visit to her friend's had police approval (which it did not).
- Again, in November 2008, the mother telephoned the MPS to say she was planning to travel to Croydon (to the Home Office) to get her passport renewed. She was told she did not need a new one and that she would be jeopardising her safety in coming to the area. She was eventually dissuaded from making this journey. This provided modest optimism to the MPS for she had asked for advice before doing something so foolish. However, the optimism engendered by this was short-lived (see below).
- On 1st December 2008 she made an emergency call to the police in the early hours of the night, saying that she had been in bed asleep and heard noises in the house, and was afraid. When DC B checked with the local police who had been round he found that she had not been in bed asleep at all, but out somewhere undisclosed and was coming home at about 1:00am. A police search revealed no evidence of any intrusion to the house. DC B subsequently asked her what she was doing out at 1:00am but did not get to the bottom of it.
- On 12th December 2009 she told the MPS that she had "married" the Afghan male in June in secret at the local mosque after only 10 days of knowing him. She was asked about this in oral evidence and was clear, although she could not be specific about the length of the period, that she had not married him until some three to four months after meeting him. I think she is mistaken about these dates, but that the mistake is genuine and not intended to mislead. I have found in listening to her that dates are not her strong suit. This is not a civil marriage recognised in English law, and indeed may not be valid in Moslem law since she was not, on one view of the evidence, and certainly to her own belief, divorced. I shall say a little more about her beliefs as to whether or not she was married or divorced when I consider her aspects of her credibility in relation to individual issues.
- She went on to say that they had already fallen-out (spectacularly) and that he wanted a divorce. She alleged that he had threatened to kill her, and that he had a firearm. These events had apparently occurred on 11th December 2009, although it was later established that the most serious allegation relating to the gun (being held to her neck) had in fact occurred on 5th December. Why had she not called DC B earlier? She made no mention in making her report to him, or any subsequent commentary on it to DC B, of him holding the gun to the back of her head, although she does make this allegation in her Section 9 CJA statement of 13th December 2008, and in a recent statement in these proceedings. She clearly had some telephone discussion with DC B, and he told me that when she first made this complaint to him on or about 12th December he felt that she was genuinely terrified. The allegation was investigated by the Thames Valley police, and it was only at the very start of this hearing that the Section 9 statement referred to above was made available, along with extracts from the relevant file including an anonymised transcript of a lengthy interview under caution with the male held on 15th December 2008. I have, for obvious reasons, not heard from him. She has given her account, although not surprisingly, she has not been invited to dwell on the minutiae of her compliant to the police and his response to it. I did not feel the need to investigate that particular allegation beyond minimal aspects of it.
- In her Section 9 witness statement she describes a young man who was initially kind to her, living alone in his own accommodation. To some extent it clarifies the chronology for she refers to meeting him in June 2008, and marrying him on 1st July 2008. Thus her account given above of some three to four months between the meeting and the marriage is more probably than not erroneous as I have already implied. He soon became controlling, aggressive and subjected her to domestic violence. He required her to wear a hijab and a scarf, and to cover herself. Almost as soon as they were married they began arguing and fighting. She did not live with him but visited him at weekends. This, no doubt, explains why she was not at her then accommodation on the night of 1st December but only returning to it in the early hours (see above).
- On reading his interview under caution there is a clear issue in relation to her age, and the sub-text of his responses to questioning suggests that she misled him as to her age, and on seeing her passport he realised he had been duped. I need not go again into the argument and counter-argument. Suffice it to say that after obtaining a warrant the police searched his home and found no evidence of a gun. Since there was no evidence to corroborate her account the matter was dropped. The father points to this refusal to proceed with a charge and a prosecution as suggesting that the mother's account is innately incredible. I do not think the material goes so far. The police of course have no gun by way of evidence, and the competing accounts either of them may have been valid.
- Returning to the question of timings of her complaint, the totality of the material now available to me suggests that whilst her allegation in relation to the gun concerns events on 5th December and one might have expected her to complain at that point, it is clear from both her account of 13th December 2008, and part of the content of his interview under caution of 15th December 2008, that there were exchanges between them by telephone in which issues of divorce, surrendering to her the marriage contract, and gold given to her on the marriage were all discussed. It is her account that, between the 5th and 11th, and particularly on that last date, there was a crescendo of threats to kill her. This does not entirely account for why she did not speak to DC B until the 12th but goes a long way to explain what might otherwise appear to be an inexplicable hiatus. I reject the submission of Mrs. Crowley that she only made these reports after she became aware that he had reported her for alleged criminal offences.
- Although the evidence is not altogether clear I believe that members (or certainly one member) of her own family appear to regard this liaison as bringing dishonour upon them, leading (allegedly) members of her own family (particularly her brother J) to threaten her life. In her oral evidence she told me that in fact she had only confessed to the relationship after the Afghan male telephoned her family and told them. They (but not her mother) (or he) repeatedly rang her and threatened her life for the dishonour she had caused. She also told me that culturally it would mean that she could never be received back into her family. I accept that some members of her family did know, although I am not altogether clear how many. Certainly, as I have found, her brother K did not. I nevertheless believed her evidence on this subject of threats from one or more members of her family (see above), and think it probable that these threats were additional overwhelming pressures which led her once again to call the police, for in combination with the collapse of this unfortunate marriage, and the overwhelming rejection of her cry for help to her family, she was even further isolated and worn down. The police were the only people to whom she could turn.
- Overall, looking at these events, and leaving aside the issue of whether or not the Afghan male had at one time had a gun (even though not discovered on a search), in respect of which I make no finding, I consider it more likely than not that she was, for the most part, telling me the truth about this relationship, "marriage" and separation. In her oral evidence she spoke eloquently of her abandonment by all, her total isolation from any form of community (save for the hotchpotch community she was then staying in where the other young women had their children with them, making her feel even more lonely), and the investment of her hopes (woefully misplaced) in this marriage in which she felt, finally, she would be safe. She was only to find, all-too quickly, that she had married a man who was certainly very controlling of her.
- I must, despite that finding, look at the undoubted issue of her credibility in relation to whether or not she could marry at all. It is overwhelmingly clear from the evidence that she did not regard herself as divorced from the father. She told me that she had discussed with the young Afghan male the fact that she was married and had a child before she married him (a factual issue corroborated by the Afghan male in the interview under caution) and thus I accept this part of her evidence. It is her account that he told her that if she stayed away from her first husband for a sufficiently long period then she would indeed be divorced. I found this part of her evidence wholly unpersuasive and unsatisfactory. I have no doubt at all that in her mind she believed herself still to be married to the father, but I also find that her despair and loneliness and belief that he might protect her drove her to ignore the fact for the purposes of a second marriage in which she hoped to find some safety and solace. Thus whilst I find her credibility impugned to this extent, I do not believe that this one issue provides a key to her credibility on other issues. I have nevertheless been on guard when considering other crucial matters.
- Once again, she was warned by the MPS in the clearest of terms.
- Although not strictly part of the Osman process, it is the view of DC B that the mother has, at times, been highly manipulative of the police. An illustration he gave me related to February 2010 where the mother, despite many requests made to her by DC B not to call him on his personal mobile telephone (the number of which she had acquired earlier by accident) for making calls relating to the case. Yet in this month she sent him many texts asserting that she believed she had seen the father's friends in her neighbourhood, and could she move home. She was told that this would not be possible immediately, but she constantly pestered him. In her oral evidence I thought her distress genuine when she was describing this series of attempts to contact him. She told me that she was alone and extremely frightened, and, with the exception of the police, had no-one to turn to. I thought her evidence credible even if her actions were wholly inappropriate. I can well-understand the frustration of DC B and that he came to the view that this was manipulative behaviour, although looked at objectively I consider that her actions were born of genuine distress and fear.
- As recently as May 2010 it came to the attention of the MPS that the mother had, in the area in which she was then living, obtained work in a business owned by a Kurdish man. The full extent to which she had compromised herself by telling her story is not known, but the police had received information from the officers discreetly investigating this, that prior to her obtaining work there, two Kurdish men had attended the business, allegedly shown a photograph of the mother, and asked questions as to whether or not she was known to the owner. After further investigation it is now very clearly the view of the MPS that the two men were not in fact in search of the mother, and that this was simply a case of coincidence. It nevertheless underlines the mother's capacity for putting herself in danger.
- There is a recent and anonymous statement from an Information and Educational Officer employed with an anonymous women's organisation. I have not required either the name of the author or the organisation to be divulged to the court, but if any order is subsequently made requiring the mother's solicitors to provide the information they must do so forthwith.
- This worker describes her duties in relation to the mother and her knowledge of the mother's practical arrangements. It appears that whilst she was in temporary accommodation (prior to December 2009) the mother received a Government allowance in the form of "employment and support". Following a necessary medical examination she was deemed fit to work and her old benefit was suspended in September 2009. She was placed on a job-seeker's allowance. She was required actively to seek work, and to sign on regularly and frequently. She was under great pressure from the job centre to find work. She also has a strong willingness to work, but by virtue of all the practical arrangements surrounding her anonymity and the careful way in which she has been advised to move within the community, it has been very difficult to find any work. Apart from anything else it must be remembered that she is illiterate, and although her English has immeasurably improved, it is not fluent. However, she has recently had further English lessons and computer lessons in order to provide her with some basic job skills.
- It was pointed out that she has had no previous work experience, and there are the obvious problems of providing papers to establish her identity and right to work. This last difficulty has only been recently resolved.
- The Education Officer gives evidence of the enormous efforts made by the mother, and the attempts to assist her in finding employment, but to no avail. She describes the acute frustration of the mother, and particularly that frustration which arises from a shortage of funds, especially as she had to fit out her new home.
- In her oral evidence the mother told me how very proud she is of her new qualifications and burgeoning education. I was very impressed by her considerable attempts to improve her lot. As I have made clear she was wholly uneducated as a child, and this is her first opportunity to improve her skills. She has not only acquired working English, but is going on to further studies in that language, and has recently acquired a certificate in computer usage. She spoke of the miserable times she had not being independent, and how her confidence has improved immeasurably with these recent steps. I can well-understand it, and to coin a phrase she found herself "between a rock and a hard place" as she was advised by the police of her limited options, yet pressured by the Job Centre to work. Although her actions in seeking work so ill-advisedly (see above) are all-too evident, the explanation now offered puts them in a slightly less troubling light.
- The Education Officer finally describes in the concluding paragraphs of her statement that in the middle of March 2010 the mother told her she was going for an interview at some Kurdish premises where a manager had been approached by friends of hers. He was apparently willing to consider giving her a job. I have no doubt that the organisation was doing its best to help the mother. The worker makes clear that the police had not given them any specific instructions as to where the mother could and could not work. However, it seems to me that as a result of the above oft-repeated advice the mother herself could have been in absolutely no doubt at all of the danger in which she was putting herself, if these allegations against the father are true, by approaching such a business and seeking work within that tight-knit community.
- What remains of considerable concern to the MPS, and indeed to me, is that when advised once again in the clearest imaginable terms of the risks she was running by behaviour of this sort she point-blank refused to be moved to further temporary accommodation insisting that she wanted to go from her then permanent accommodation to new permanent accommodation. It was only after application was made to me by the MPS, in consequence of which I discharged them from the undertaking they had earlier given me to facilitate the mother and her legal team in having discussions with each other and making provision for face-to-face meetings with them, that the mother (having met with her legal team after that team made arrangements on an emergency basis) finally agreed to move.
- It seems to me, to state the obvious, that there are very significant risks in placing R with his mother and/or facilitating his contact to his mother if the MPS assessment of the risk to her is accurate. Even if their risk assessment is flawed and there is no risk, what am I to make of a mother who purportedly believes there to be a very grave one, yet frequently courts what she believes to be potentially disastrous consequences? In relation to the Osman warnings, she says this in her May 2010 statement:
- Approximately 20 witnesses have been called to give oral evidence. A considerable number of additional witnesses were not called for perfectly proper reasons, not the least of which is proportionality.
- This case essentially revolves around the credibility of both the mother and the father. Both have been found wanting in large measure.
- As to the supporting witnesses, I have noted those parts of their evidence upon which I feel I can rely (not many) and occasionally aspects of their evidence which I found not to be credible.
- When considering the evidence of family members on either the maternal or paternal side, I quickly came to the conclusion, having listened to them carefully, that they had all more or less been carefully scripted, and had colluded with either the mother or the father, and/or more fluid groups of family members in an endeavour to present a coherent account of their preferred version of history. A noticeable characteristic of the father's witnesses was the urgency with which they attempted to convey to me the upright moral and social values of that family, even where the prior question bore no relationship to the material they were volunteering.
- All of these witnesses (both mother's and father's) with the exception of Mrs. ST for the father, purported not to have discussed these issues with each other, nor with the mother or the father, even where it was wholly incredible that in any realistic version of familial existence they must have spoken. As the father said to me at one stage in his cross-examination the Kurdish community certainly in England, and by virtue I find of the intense and well-connected family groups in Kurdistan and Iran, know everything about each other. I take as one particularly egregious example of an attempt to mislead me from the paternal grandfather's evidence to the effect that he has never discussed with his son the reasons for the failure of his marriage and what has ensued. I am not, I emphasise, in making this finding projecting on to their familial culture an increasing tendency in "the West" to intrude into private matters. These two families have a powerful sense of what is right and wrong (although their respective senses may be different from each other's). When relationships go wrong (as here they demonstrably did) it is groups of elders (and on the more formal occasions only male elders) which come together to attempt to resolve these problems. They do not come to such meetings and discussions blind of what has been going on, and the attempt to persuade me that these distressing matters had not been discussed is, I find, patently absurd.
- It is for those reasons that I have found it unnecessary to set out at length in this already over-lengthy judgment, extensive extracts from the material provided both in written and oral form by this large number of additional witnesses.
- I decline to repeat in detail by specific reference to the Scott Schedule my findings in relation to each and every allegation. As will be clear to the reader of that schedule and this judgment, I have not made findings in respect of each and every issue raised, but my views are sufficiently clearly expressed in the main body of the document to brook no ambiguity.
- I have at various points in this judgment recited aspects of the history in respect of which I have not made findings where the parties cannot agree what occurred. I have not done so on some occasions (declared on the face of the judgment) because the evidence was insufficiently illuminating to permit me to make findings on the cross-allegations. I have also declined to make findings on occasion because I do not feel it necessary to do so in order to come to a proper conclusion on the main aspects of the case.
| The Proceedings: | 1 - 5 |
| This Hearing: | 6 - 7 |
| The Allegations: | 8 - 9 |
| The Allegations: The Law | 10 - 12 |
| The Evidence: Practical Issues: | 13 - 24 |
| The Mother's Current Arrangements: | 25 - 27 |
| The Parties: Further Background: | |
| The Mother's Date of Birth: | 28 - 31 |
| The Father's Date of Birth: | 32 - 33 |
| Immigration Status – The Father: | 34 - 37 |
| Immigration Status – The Mother: | 38 - 39 |
| Earlier Background – The Father: | 40 - 48 |
| Earlier Background – The Mother: | 49 - 57 |
| The Religious Marriage: | 58 - 72 |
| A Civil Marriage? | 73 - 74 |
| Virginity: Consummation of The Marriage: | 75 - 81 |
| Arrival in the United Kingdom: | 82 - 83 |
| Sexual Assaults/Sexual Routine: Domestic Violence: | 84 - 96 |
| Sexual Behaviour: | 97 - 99 |
| Pornography: | 100 - 104 |
| His Account Continued: | 105 - 107 |
| Findings: | 108 - 110 |
| Life in Croydon: Other Aspects: | |
| Isolation: 2005 Onwards: | 111 - 112 |
| Finances: | 113 - 115 |
| The Mother's Psychiatric History: | 116 |
| The Father's Account: | 117 - 123 |
| Medical Records Considered: General: | 124 - 125 |
| Medical Records: Specific: | 126 - 154 |
| Medical Records: Comment: | 155 |
| Dr. Wilkins: | 156 |
| Extracts from Her History as Given to Dr. Wilkins: | 157 - 162 |
| How She Accounts for Her "History" of Medical Illness: | 163 - 171 |
| Mother's Further History to Dr. Wilkins: | 172 - 181 |
| Dr. Wilkins: July 2009 Report: Discussion & Diagnosis: | 182 - 183 |
| Comment: | 184 - 185 |
| Mother's History to Dr. Wilkins: January 2010: | 186 - 188 |
| January 2010: Discussion: Diagnosis Revisited: | 189 |
| Mental Health: Findings: | 190 |
| Mental Health - Child Care: Findings: | 191 - 199 |
| A Divorce? | 200 |
| January – March 2007: | 201 - 202 |
| Family Meetings: | 203 - 208 |
| First Meeting: | 209 - 213 |
| Second Meeting: | 214 - 218 |
| Termination: | 219 |
| Abandonments: August 2007: | |
| First Attempt: Germany: | 220 - 224 |
| Second Attempt: Iran: | 225 - 232 |
| What Happened Next? | 233 - 234 |
| Third Meeting: | |
| Talaq/Financial Arrangements (post Talaq): | 235 - 245 |
| Agreement: Discussion: Findings: | 246 - 255 |
| Divorce in The Family: | 256 - 266 |
| Her Immigration Status Re-visited: | |
| Return to the U.K. February 2008: | 267 - 269 |
| Threats to Kill: | 270 - 281 |
| Police Investigation: 2008: | 282 - 287 |
| Osman Warnings: | |
| The Law: | 288 - 289 |
| MPS: Risk Assessment: | 290 - 292 |
| Warnings Given: | 293 - 294 |
| Compromising Actions: | 295 - 325 |
| Comment: | 326 - 327 |
| Supporting Witnesses: | 328 - 333 |
| Findings: The Scott Schedule: | 334 - 335 |
Mr. Justice Roderic Wood:
The Allegations:
i) The mother has been the victim of repeated and frequent sexual assaults including sodomy and vaginal rape perpetrated, allegedly, by the father.ii) A noxious substance was administered to the mother without her knowledge or consent on or about the 28th August 2007, and whilst she was unconscious she was forcibly restrained (as she discovered on regaining consciousness), and the father had "kidnapped" R whilst she was incapacitated.
iii) Since that time, and for a variety of different reasons, the mother has been the subject of "honour killing" death threats. For the purposes of this judgment a so-called "honour killing" [I shall hereafter simply refer to these as "honour killing" death threats, dropping the pre-fix "so called"] can be defined as a threat to kill someone for carrying out some act or acts, or perceived act or acts, which bring dishonour to the family. They are frequently, but not exclusively, carried out against women. In this case the threats have been allegedly issued by, amongst others, the father, members of his family, and it is said by members of the mother's own family, as well as by her "second husband". It is almost artificial in this context to refer to "his", and "her" family, because this mother and father are cousins (his father and her mother being full siblings), and members of the same tribe, although the cartographer's exercise historically severed the family into two nationalities, the mother's family living in Iran, and the father's in Iraq. Both are of Kurdish stock.
i) The mother has suffered from mental health problems both during her adolescence in Iran, and subsequent to her arrival in England in 2005;ii) By virtue of her temperament and/or her mental health problems she never "bonded" with R;
iii) Again, by virtue of the above problems and/or her temperament, she ill-treated R and put him at physical risk either by acts of deliberate assault perpetrated by her on the boy, or by negligent care of him;
iv) She remains (irrespective of any continuing mental health problems) incapable of providing proper care for R.
Allegations: The Law:
"Announce loud and clear that the standard of proof in finding the facts necessary to establish the threshold under section 31 (2) or the welfare considerations in section 1 of the 1989 Act is the simple balance of probabilities, neither more nor less. Neither the seriousness of the allegation nor the seriousness of the consequences should make any difference to the standard of proof to be applied in determining the facts. The inherent probabilities are something to be taken into account, where relevant, in deciding where the truth lies". [Paragraph 70].
I so direct myself.
The Evidence: Practical Issues:
Mother's Date of Birth:
i) In order to obtain asylum (see paragraphs 34 - 37 below) he had told the authorities in England that he was married;ii) He gave no date for that purported ceremony of marriage because in fact one had never taken place;
iii) He had left the mother and her brother J in Iran to sort out her visa to the United Kingdom; the errors in her documentation were nothing to do with him, but had all been created by the brother J to fit in with the father's false story of an earlier marriage.
Father's Date of Birth:
The Father's Immigration Status:
The Mother' Immigration Status:
The Father's Earlier Background:
The Mother's Earlier Background:
Sexual Behaviour:
Pornography:
"What I meant to say was that I did not see her watching pornography in Iran which is correct, however, I do believe she did watch pornography when in Iran for the following reasons".
He then goes on to describe what he calls her "very sexy dance and strip-tease" on retiring to bed on the first two evenings at the flat in Croydon, repeated occasionally thereafter. She is also alleged by him to have shown an interest in adopting different sexual positions although he was not keen to do so.
His Account - Continued:
Findings:
i) The father has, at times, indulged in brutal non-consensual sexual behaviour with her.ii) He has perpetrated acts of non-consensual vaginal, anal, and oral rape upon her.
iii) I do not know whether or not this behaviour began on their first night together in the flat in Croydon, but I doubt it, and accordingly it is possible to ask why I have not regarded the rest of her evidence on this subject (she being firm in her account that it did begin on that first night) as less than credible. The simple answer is that I believed her account on the subject of the nature of the assaults, its narrative flow, and its compelling and congruent detail, but that her conflicting evidence as to the length of a number of the period when he was kind to her at the start of their marriage, one of which would take this young couple beyond the time of that first night, contradict her evidence on this point. I suspect, but cannot come to any concluded view, that her evidence on the date of commencement may be designed to emphasise and exaggerate his brutishness.
iv) This sexual behaviour may well have followed on from her making her views clear about the nature of the accommodation, and how far they fell short of what she had been led to expect, as well as her increasing withdrawal from him as she became more depressed (see below for my conclusions as to the state of her mental health). There is reference in the papers to him being sexually frustrated over a long period prior to his marriage, and this, too, may well have led to what she, subjectively, regarded as excessive demands for intercourse and sexual play. There may well have been other reasons. I shall not speculate further.
v) The mother's account of very lengthy sessions of such sexual assault upon her by the father are exaggerations.
vi) I regret that I cannot put those exaggerations down to anything other than deliberate lying to me (and in the past to the police in her ABE interviews, and in her statements in these proceedings) in order to paint the father even more darkly, even though at their core the allegations are true in the sense described in (i) to (iii) above.
vii) She need not have troubled, for such are my findings as to the nature of his acts, and that they were perpetrated regularly and frequently over the course of their time together, is quite sufficient.
viii) In addition, I find that he has at times been guilty of physical (but non-sexual) assaults upon her. She has alleged that he kicked, slapped and punched her. I find at times that he has carried out such acts, and I was, in particular, persuaded that he went so far as to punch her by her compelling oral evidence of one example when he left her with a swollen and bloody lip after such an assault. Although she was intermittently seeing others at this time, there were other times when she was not, sufficient for such an injury to repair itself without visible sign. I was unimpressed by the line of questioning best illustrated by the enquiry into why doctors/nurses/midwives had not seen any injuries at ante-natal clinics. It seemed to me that her straightforward answer that she only bared her stomach for such examinations was entirely credible, and more likely than not to have been the case. I do not forget that this young woman comes from a culture which has a greater respect for physical modesty than is currently fashionable in the West.
Isolation: 2005 Onwards:
Finances:
The Father's Account:
Medical Records Considered: General:
Medical Records: Specific:
i) It is part of the mother's case that her repeated presentations to doctors, both in the G.P. surgery and at hospital, complaining of depression and mental health difficulties, were instigated by her husband as part of his campaign to extract from the State better accommodation and greater welfare benefits.ii) The second point is that I find it odd that the mother and father could be so clear that the mother would not act upon her ideas of suicide if there were a separation. How could they be so sure given the mother's alleged history in particular? It is again part of the mother's case that her reported and purported behaviour/symptoms were in fact the fruit of her husband's imagination, and that he told her what to say to the doctors for the same purposes as described in sub-paragraph (i) above. He had suggested that a reference to mental health problems in Iran would "beef-up" their claims about current problems.
i) the medical staff had not been concerned for the welfare of R;ii) in response to the question "did [the mother] make known any concerns to medical staff concerning her son R?", the original inked answer is "no", subsequently changed to "yes, not bruises"; this response is unhappily delphic;
iii) the surgery had not made any referrals to social services. They had no concerns about the father and his relationship either to the mother or R;
iv) they had been concerned about her mental health and the letter has a cryptic note concerning a referral to the mother and baby team for depression "but DNA'ed", and
v) quite by chance there is a further manuscript note at the foot of the letter referring to R's attendance at the surgery with his father on 9th May for routine immunisations.
Medical Records: Comment:
Dr. Wilkins:
Extracts From Her History as Given to Dr. Wilkins:
How She Accounts for Her "History" of Mental Illness:
"She told me that she had in fact had no mental health problems at all. She told me that she had presented with mental health problems because her husband had coached her to do so in order for them to obtain preference for re-housing. It was also intended that they would be able to claim more in the way of benefits. At the time Ms B explained, she could not speak English. Mr. A told her GP she had mental health problems and as a result she was referred to a psychiatrist ".
"Overall it would appear that Ms. B maintained that her entire contact with the mental health services in 2005 and 2006 was part of some elaborate ploy by her husband in order to maximise the benefits that they might be eligible for and to obtain better housing. She could recall being admitted to hospital and thought that she might have been detained under the Mental Health Act although she wasn't sure. She effectively told me that what she had relayed to the various doctors that had see (sic) her was completely fabricated and that she had never had any mental health problems of any description".
As Dr. Wilkins wryly notes "this is, of course, considerably at variance to what the notes indicate".
Mother's Further History to Dr. Wilkins:
"Her behaviour, as reported by her, at the time of her contact with mental health services in 2005 and 2006, is perhaps credible from the perspective that she would have felt under the control of her husband, would have felt very uncertain of her own control over her own life not only because of her experiences in the past but also because of the fact that she was new to the United Kingdom, having only recently left an environment where she was effectively secluded for all her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. She was also unable to speak English. It is understandable therefore that she may have felt subservient to her husband and easily coerced by him. I do not consider that this is evidence of personality disorder whilst recognising that it is likely to have profoundly affected the development of her personality, character and temperament".
Dr. Wilkins: July 2009 Report: Discussion and Diagnosis:
"Ms. B gave a consistent account to different doctors albeit, to some extent, a somewhat vague account. Description of symptoms includes not only those obtained through direct questioning but also observation. ….. At no stage does Dr. (FM) appear to have considered that the account given by Ms.B might have been influenced by her husband. ….. there appeared to be no particular difference in her presentation when the interviews were conducted through her husband than through an interpreter …. there is nothing in the notes to suggest that staff at any stage suspected Mr. A being a malign influence and housing benefit issues are hardly mentioned. Ms. B did not imply or reveal information to suggest this and did not take the opportunities that were given when she was seen alone and with the benefit of an interpreter to declare the true situation ….. Ms B's suggestion now that she presented the clinical information that she did simply to obtain benefits or accommodation preferentially at the behest of her husband does not fit easily with the amount of contact she really had with mental health services during that period. It also has to be emphasised that the services responsible for Ms. B's care during this period are amongst the best in the country if not the best. Whilst accepting entirely that no-one is infallible, it seems unlikely that Ms. B would have been able to effectively dupe these services consistently over the period of time concerned to the extent that it was not even suspected that she might be presenting genuine clinical information".
Of course, as Dr. Wilkins immediately goes on to recognise, it is my job to make such findings and he eschews any intention of usurping my role.
"Therefore, any condition that she did have in 2005 and 2006 appears to have been transient and in view of the fact that it persisted despite quite vigorous treatment by various doctors and following a period if in-patient treatment, it appears to have improved probably spontaneously in response to a change in her personal circumstances".
Comment:
"…. I consider it more likely than not that she was significantly depressed in 2005 and 2006 and displayed psychotic symptoms".
Whilst I entirely respect that professional opinion, once again the resolution of the conundrum is essentially a matter for me. In this context it is relevant, however, to note a further remark of Dr. Wilkins in his report of 7th August:
"It is not unusual for individuals who have experienced a severe psychiatric episode to minimise the significance and importance of that episode in the future particularly when they have recovered. I therefore do not necessarily consider it to be the case that Ms. B's denial of the significance of the psychiatric symptoms that she presented with in 2005 and 2006 is a reflection of any underlying dishonesty. It is possible that she simply has minimised the significance of the symptoms in her own mind, as is so often the case".
Mother's History: To Dr. Wilkins: January 2010:
January 2010: Discussion: Diagnosis Revisited:
"I cannot rule out the possibility that she effectively duped staff in 2005 and 2006 into thinking she was mentally ill to the extent that she required admission to hospital even under the Mental Health Act. Conversely, I cannot rule out the possibility either that what she is saying now is the truth".
Later he says this:
"If she did suffer from mental health problems in 2005 and 2006 these appear to have resolved and they could be seen in terms of her status as a recent immigrant and as the victim of domestic violence".
Finally, in this context, he adds:
"It is also possible that she has an independent mental illness unrelated to any of her background factors, although I consider this to be less likely bearing in mind her presentation now".
Mental Health: Findings:
i) There is evidence which I accept that this mother suffered from mental health problems in her earlier pre-marital life in Iran. I consider that the father's allegations that she was at times suicidal, and had periods of mental ill-health requiring treatment in that country are probably true. In so finding, I do recognise that her own immediate family have a significant personal and social investment in not admitting that there was any such problem with her. Had there been any such problems, and were they now to admit them, they would, at the least, be accused by the paternal side of the family of deception in presenting her as a young marriageable woman with no blemish in her background, for mental ill-health is indeed regarded as shameful in their culture. These lies have obvious implications for their credibility.ii) Two things persuade me in particular that there was such an earlier manifestation of this type of problem. The first is that the circumstances of her early home life are to some extent a pre-figuring of her early married life in Croydon: unstimulated educationally, very restricted in her social life, and kept at home. The second factor is the evidence of the father's uncle AB, who is roughly her equivalent in age and grew up in the same village as her. He described her being taken to the hospital on occasions by her father, and although he was not told, and did not ask, and did not speculate upon, her condition, there is nothing in the maternal family's evidence to suggest that she was suffering from any medical condition requiring hospital treatment on more than one occasion. I believe that she did indeed have a very hard life in her parent's home, and that it is more probable than not that she did indeed suffer from some condition the precise diagnosis for which is not being divulged by the family. I should note that AB struck me as one of the few witnesses called by either side of the family as not speaking from a script. He was clearly uncomfortable in the witness box, but answered questions without evasiveness (on most if not all subjects) and I believed him on this point.
iii) As a coda to i) above I do not find there to be any credible evidence that her brother J suffered likewise although the father alleged as much; I do, however, find that the evidence that he is at its lowest excitable and given to uncontrolled bursts of temper and the making of threats both credible and true.
iv) I also find that she did have mental health problems in 2005 and 2006, and that those problems arose for a number of reasons which include her social isolation; her complete inability to speak the language, thus compounding that isolation; and domestic violence received at the hands of her husband.
v) The term "domestic violence" also imports sexual assaults by him upon her as I have made clear above.
vi) It thus follows that I find her to have suffered mental health problems to the extent that she did require admission to a relevant unit, and treatment, including medication, over a long period of time for those problems.
vii) I am unable to say whether or not her current denial on this subject is a minimisation of those earlier problems for whatever reason, or that she simply does not remember what she was really like during that period, or bare-faced lying by her. What I do find established is that her own parents and members of her sibling group have lied on this subject, probably for the reasons set out in (i) above.
viii) In making the above findings I do, however, accept her evidence that her husband was attempting to use her mental health problems to improve their access to greater benefits (he would for example theoretically be in the position of being able to apply for a carer's allowance) and more accommodation. In other words, crudely put, he was trading on her real mental health problems in an attempt to exact financial advantage from the local authority and the State. This is not to diminish the fact that I also find (apparently – but not in reality - contradictorily) that he was at times genuinely worried about her mental health. I think that worry was more likely than not based on two features: the social consequences in his culture of having a wife so suffering; and his own wish that she would recover from this illness and be the sort of wife to him which he had anticipated. It cannot be underestimated, in my view, that the social forces operating within his world were profoundly antagonistic both to mental health problems and dissolution of marriage.
ix) I find that in so taking full advantage of her mental health problems, he was priming her to an extent when she was seeing doctors to request greater financial reward and to seek help in getting a transfer to such larger accommodation, (or to a second apartment) possibly so that he could rent it out if they succeeded in so doing. There is ample reference in the medical/psychiatric notes to make it abundantly clear that they were repeatedly asking for such advantages and/or letters of support to gain such advantages from others.
x) In so far as a layman can express an opinion, I do not find there to be sufficient evidence to establish that she was suffering from an independent mental illness entirely unrelated to the background factors described above, and in this context am persuaded by the opinion of Dr. Wilkins who refers, in coming to the same conclusion, to her current symptom-free presentation. In other words, such was her own pre-marital history, his behaviour towards her, and her response to that behaviour, that she did suffer from the above mental health difficulties, and has now, being separated from his behaviour and those pressures surrounding it, recovered.
Mental Health – Child Care: Findings:
January – March 2007:
Family Meetings:
First Meeting:
Second Meeting:
"The defendant did not pronounce a Talaq on me but the defendant did say to me that he had divorced me and he did not want me to come back to him".
There has been no elucidation by any witness as to precisely what this quotation was about. I am, I repeat, unable to conclude on this evidence, that he divorced her on that occasion. I reject the father's allegation that she said that if he did not divorce her she would "cut R to pieces".
Termination:
Abandonment: First Attempt: Germany: August 2007:
Abandonment: August 2007: Iran:
What Happened Next?
Third Meeting:
Talaq/Financial Arrangements (post Talaq):
"The terms of the divorce provide that I would care for R. This is not unusual and indeed it would have been expected in our culture because of the plaintiff's health issues and her behaviour towards him. In any event R, at the age of 7, would have passed to me as is tradition". [Emphasis supplied]
This remark is of some interest, for it shows that despite his posture as a less than traditional member of his society, and with a belief in God but not a belief in the Islamic religion or its observances, he is at heart deeply entrenched in the mores of his society.
Agreement: Discussion: Findings:
Divorce in The Family?
Her Immigration Status Revisited: Return to the U.K.: February 2008:
Police Investigation: 2008:
The Law:
Thus the authorities have this obligation imposed upon them where they know or ought to have known at the time of the "existence of a real and immediate risk to the life of an identified individual or individuals from the criminal acts of a third party".
"A real risk is one that is objectively verified, and an immediate risk is one that is present and continuing".
The threshold has been considered to be a high one and not easily satisfied.
MPS: Risk Assessment:
Warnings Given:
Compromising Actions:
Comment:
"I have found my position to be very difficult, living without any support and having severe restrictions imposed in respect of my life. I have, on occasions, required support from others which I now realise may have been unwise".
As I have made clear already, if her account of events is true, no-one could fail to be sympathetic to her plight. However, on any view of the material, if the allegations are true, or if she believes them to be true, she has displayed an astonishing recklessness on many occasions, as well as highly manipulative behaviour and mendacity.