Daily Archives: March 27, 2012

Judge calls for no-fault divorce

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27 March 2012
Last updated at 12:12 ET

A ringSir Nicholas Wall is a “strong believer” in marriage

Couples should be allowed to divorce without having to blame one or the other, the most senior family law judge in England and Wales has said.

Sir Nicholas Wall, president of the High Court’s Family Division, said he could “see no good arguments against no-fault divorce”.

Society no longer sees divorce as shameful, so there is no need for one partner to be deemed innocent, he said.

A change in the law was mooted in 1996, but scrapped before it was implemented.

In a speech to family lawyers, Sir Nicholas said: “I am a strong believer in marriage.

“But I see no good arguments against no-fault divorce.

“At the moment, as it seems to me we have a system – so far as divorce itself is concerned – which is in fact administrative, but which masquerades as judicial.”

He said this had its roots in history.

“In the 19th Century and for much of the 20th, divorce was a matter of social status – it mattered whether you were divorced or not, and if you were, it was important to demonstrate that you were the ‘innocent party’.

“All that, I think, has gone.”

Under current divorce law in England and Wales, a person has to prove in court that the marriage has broken down.

It can have broken down for only five reasons – adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion after two years, two years’ separation with consent or five years’ separation without consent – and these are included in a divorce petition when it is filed to a court.

If the grounds are agreed, and the court sees no reason why there cannot be a divorce, a decree nisi document is drawn up.

A decree absolute is then issued, legally ending the marriage.

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I am a strong believer in marriage. But I see no good arguments against no fault divorce”

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Sir Nicholas Wall,
President of the High Court’s Family Division

Sir Nicholas was on the Whitehall advisory group recommending no-fault divorces in the Family Law Act 1996.

But opponents said it allowed couples to break up too easily, and the plans were scrapped by Tony Blair’s Labour government.

The judge made the speech at the annual conference of Resolution – a group of lawyers promoting non-confrontational resolutions to family problems – held in Leeds at the weekend.

Campaign group Fathers 4 Justice agreed with Sir Nicholas – with some reservations.

Campaign director Nadine O’Connor said: “Where children are involved, I would not like to see a fast-track option, because there is a need to consider the rights and responsibilities to children. Where there are no children, a no-fault divorce is a sensible option to have.

“Where children are involved, there are other implications that come into play. But in the majority of cases, people do not sit around a dinner table and compare notes on why they got divorced. There is definitely room for no-fault divorce. Going to the courts should really be a last resort.

“This is where relationship has broken down, it’s not a criminal matter, it’s a couple that has simply fallen out of love.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The government currently has no plans to change the grounds for divorce or any of the reasons used to support irretrievable breakdown of marriage.”

Miami Beach developer charged with helping swindle NFL star Freeney – Sun

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Michael Stern, a controversial one-time Miami Beach developer, was arrested Friday on federal wire fraud charges for allegedly helping swindle NFL star Dwight Freeney in a California restaurant deal, records show.

Stern — who once acted as an undercover informant to expose payoffs to Miami Beach building officials — was charged along with Freeney’s Los Angeles business manager, Eva Weinberg. They are accused of siphoning money from Freeney’s accounts and sending it to a dummy account that Stern tapped to pay for his personal expenses, records show.

Stern, 51, was charged with taking $68,000 from Freeney, a defensive lineman with the Indianapolis Colts. But investigators suspect the scheme netted $2.2 million before last week’s arrests, court records show.

In recorded phone conversations, Stern told an undercover informant that he and Weinberg planned to flee the United States to the Bahamas, Trinidad or Israel before their scheme was revealed, according to an FBI affidavit. Stern is also accused of using the alias “Michael Millar” in meetings with Freeney.

Prosecutors on Wednesday will ask a judge to order Stern to be extradited from Miami to California to face trial, a move Stern’s Miami lawyer, Henry Bell, opposes.

“He’s innocent until proven guilty, and we intend to litigate this,” Bell said.

According to the FBI affidavit, Weinberg introduced Freeney to Stern, who offered to help with a business dispute involving a Los Angeles restaurant venture. In a lawsuit, other partners in the restaurant deal said “Millar” masqueraded as a wealthy investor with a private jet and Caribbean homes in order to lure other investors into the restaurant deal.

Weinberg is described as Stern’s one-time live-in girlfriend in court papers.

Last fall, Freeney discovered some $2 million in unapproved wire transfers from his restaurant-investment account to a company called Arm’s Reach Consulting, the affidavit says. Investigators learned that Stern later made withdrawals from the Arm’s Reach account, as did Stern’s ex-wife and other Miami Beach associates, court records show.

On March 17, Stern told an FBI informant that he planned to use Freeney’s money to buy a private plane, according to the FBI affidavit. Stern later asked the informant to fly to Los Angeles and destroy the hard drive on Stern’s computer there to erase evidence of the scheme, the records show.

The informant also told investigators that Stern had intercepted a $50,000 check from the Colts to Freeney, and that Stern tried to cash the check at a Miami check-cashing store last Thursday.

Stern was once an active real-estate developer on Miami Beach, best known for his attempt to knock down a historic coral rock house on Collins Avenue. But his business collapsed under more than $50 million in outstanding loans, and he filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

Stern also faced multiple lawsuits from former partners and investors who accused him of using forged documents to defraud them, court records show. Stern denied any wrongdoing, and he was never criminally charged in those cases.

In 2007, Stern agreed to help state prosecutors investigate a web of payoffs of building and planning officials at Miami Beach City Hall. Stern wore an undercover camera to tape his conversations with building officials, and said he paid a bribe to one city worker by placing cash in a toilet paper roll in a City Hall bathroom.