Wyatt v Vince [2013] EWCA Civ 495, [2013] All ER (D) 96 (May)
Court of Appeal, Civil Division, Lord Justice Thorpe, Lord Justice Jackson & Lord Justice Tomlinson, 8 May 2013
The court should adopt the same broad approach to the interpretation and application of r 4.4(1)(b) of the Family Procedure Rules (FPR) as in relation to CPR 3.4(2)(b) in the context of civil proceedings.
Philip Cayford QC (instructed by Mishcon De Reya) for the wife. Martin Pointer QC, Geoffrey Kingscote and Simon Webster (instructed by Schillings) for the husband.
The parties married in December 1981. At the time they had neither assets nor income. A son, D, had been born in May 1981. The wife already had a daughter, E, born in 1979, whom the husband accepted into the family. They separated in about 1984. The wife moved to Lowestoft where she survived on state benefits. The husband housed himself in Bath in an old ambulance. The husband had a new relationship in the late 1980s; there was one child born in 1988. Divorce proceedings took place culminating in
