Child Support - 2000

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This page lists 7 cases, and was prepared on 12 May 2012.

Huxley -v- Child Support Agency [2000] 1 FLR 989
2000 CA Lady Justice Hale, Auld and Pill LJJ	Child Support	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court gave an extensive analysis of the workings of the Child Support Act: (Lady Justice Hale) "It is important to bear in mind that the child support scheme is not simply a method for the State to recoup part of its benefit expenditure from the absent parents. It is a replacement both for the former method of doing this and for the court's powers to make orders between individuals for periodical payments for the maintenance of children. . . . The child support system has elements of private and public law but fundamentally it is a nationalised system for assessing and enforcing an obligation which each parent owes primarily to the child. It replaces the powers of the courts, which can no longer make orders for periodical payments for children save in very limited circumstances. Unless she can secure a voluntary agreement at least as high as that which the CSA would assess, the PWC is expected to look to the Agency to assess her child support according to the formula, whether or not she is on benefit. The fact that it does her no direct good if she is on means-tested benefits, and that much CSA activity so far has been in relation to parents on benefit, does not alter the fundamental characteristics of the scheme."
	Child Support Act 1991

Wakefield -v- Secretary of State for Social Security and another
24 Feb 2000 CA	Child Support, Benefits
	A fireman paying child support retired after being injured. He received a pension in two parts. Both were included as income for the calculation of child support. He claimed that the injury pension should be excluded. Held: He failed. The court said that the injury pension was not a payment of damages for personal injuries, not being calculated by reference to any loss of earnings, or expenses arising from the injury. The way such payments were viewed under tax law was not relevant.

McKerry -v- Teesdale and Wear Valley Justices; McKerry -v- Director of Public Prosecutions [2001] EMLR 5
29 Feb 2000 CA Lord Bingham	Child Support, Criminal Practice, Media	Casemap 1 Citers
	The courts must recognise the need to protect the identity of children involved in criminal proceedings. This derived both from national statute and from international law and practice. Nevertheless, the court had the discretion in appropriate cases to order disclosure of the name of a child convicted before it of criminal charges where the public interest properly required this. As to the giving of reasons for their decision by magistrates: "It is not usual for magistrates to give detailed reasons; nor is it usual for juries, who make very important decisions affecting human rights, to give any reasons at all. If an aggrieved party wishes to obtain more detailed reasons from a magistrates' court, then a request can be made to state a case, as was done here, and the justices have given their reasons at somewhat greater length."
	Children and Young Persons Act 1933 49(4A)

Norris (Inspector of Taxes) -v- Edgson
30 May 2000 ChD	Child Support, Income Tax
	Where a father paid child support to the mother through the Child Support Agency, and where the mother had re-married and that subsequent marriage had also ended in divorce, the maintenance paid did not attract income tax relief under the section. The payment remained a 'qualifying payment' for claiming the tax relief only until the other party had re-married. A subsequent divorce did not defeat fulfilment of that condition.
	Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 347B

In Re N (A Minor) (Adoption: Foreign Guardianship)
27 Jun 2000 FD	Adoption, Child Support
	Somebody who had been appointed guardian of a child by a foreign court but which order was recognised here, had sufficient standing to be the person entitled to give consent to an adoption or whose consent could be dispensed with. The Act should be read to give a wider construction as to the person able to give consent, and the authorities interpreted accordingly.
	Adoption Act 1976 16(1)

Regina -v- C (A Minor)
5 Jul 2000 CACD	Criminal Practice, Child Support, Human Rights
	A judge who had ordered the trial of an eleven year old boy in the Crown Court but in doing so had kept in mind the judgement in the cases of T v United Kingdom and V v United Kingdom, and had made appropriate adjustments to the proceedings, had acted properly within his discretion.

Dorney-Kingdom -v- Dorney-Kingdom
25 Jul 2000 CA	Children, Family, Child Support
	A court may not make an original order for child maintenance, save by consent. The practice of disguising such an order, as part of spousal maintenance, pending a determination by the Child Support Agency, was only legitimate where there was included a real element of spousal maintenance. Simply calling child maintenance spousal maintenance is not correct or legitimate.
	Child Support Act 1991 8(5)