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The divorce debacle

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06 November 2014 / Jonathan Herring
Issue: 7629 / Categories: Features , Family
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Jonathan Herring reports on a rare case of divorce fraud

It is not often that cases on divorce are reported these days. Generally granting divorce is essentially a bureaucratic procedure and defended divorce cases are even rarer than a legal aid certificate in the family law courts. Indeed the government has indicated plans to introduce divorce through the internet at some point in the future.

Front page news

Much media excitement greeted Rapisarda v Colladon [2014] EWFC 35, [2014] All ER (D) 03 (Oct), where Sir James Munby gave the judgment. The case involved “a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice on an almost industrial scale” (para 1). The court needed to consider 180 divorce petitions issued between August 2010 and February 2012 to 137 different county courts from all around the country.

The judgment contains, by way of background, a helpful summary of the divorce procedure in England and Wales: “An application for divorce is made in the English court by an originating process called a petition. The person applying for divorce

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