Family Law News Edinburgh

One the UK's most senior family law judges has advised that major changes could be coming to the ways divorces are conducted, with technology continuing to play a much larger role in proceedings.

January is traditionally the month where we pack away the last of the Christmas decorations, join a gym and start a new hobby for a week or two. We tend to reflect on the year we have had and think about changes we want to make in the future.

The BBC recently reported that the number of divorces in England and Wales has been falling since the 1990s. However, one age group which has seen a rise in divorce rates is the over 60s. Indeed, the Office for National Statistics noted that there has been a rise of 73% in the number of divorces in this group over the past 25 years.

A woman is campaigning for a change in the law after she was unable to divorce her husband of 20 years on grounds of adultery as he only had affairs with men.

Under the UK, law adultery does not count if the person has had sex with a member of the same sex. The woman, who spoke on BBC Radio 4 while hiding her identity attempted to obtain a divorce citing adultery but was informed by her lawyer that she was unable to. She was instead forced to cite unreasonable behaviour as the reason for divorce with adultery not being an option as he only had affairs with the same member of sex.

Although she opted to divorce him under unreasonable behaviour and that such a citation did not affect the financial outcome when separating she is still attempting to reform the law as she is in the minority of people who: "care hugely about the betrayal and want to know that somebody somewhere has recognised that".

In a landmark case for the UK, a woman has been awarded her ex-husband's entire fortune and estate in a divorce battle.

Enas Aly was awarded the £550,000 assets her ex-husband Dr Essam Aly owned after he allegedly "washed his hands" of his family according to a judge. Despite claiming that the decision was “unfair” the decision against the hospital consultant was deemed fair by judges, with the court stating that he neglected his family when he left the UK.

The judge stated that Dr Aly treated his so badly that his wife and children deserved “the lionshare if not all” of the compensation. Dr Aly had not been paying child support to his ex-wife leading to his wife winning his assets. In total, Enas Aly was awarded the lump sum from the sale of a house as well as £310,000 from her former husband's bank account. Dr Aly had left the UK and stopped paying child support.