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Child Custody

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Child custody is such an emotive issue that it is difficult tosummarise within a few words what it entails. In England and Wales the Children Act 1989 as amended by the Children and Adoption Act 2002 has as its main ethos the ‘no order principle’.

The legislation also introduced the terms ‘residence’, ‘contact’ and parental responsibility’. Most people still generally refer to these issues as child custody problems and for ease of reference we will use the phrase child custody to include all issues in disputes concerning children. The no order principle can be a difficult concept for the layperson to understand.

Most couples automatically assume that when they split up child custody and access issues are decided by the courts. This is not the case. Child custody is only determined by the court if parents cannot agree on the arrangements for their children. Although the court system does its best to cope with the number of private law applications going through the system there are often delays and a lack of continuity because the court has to give priority to public law cases such as Care Proceedings. A private law dispute concerning child custody can therefore take over a year to resolve.

At Betteridges we aim to provide advice and assistance to try to avoid contested child custody disputes. Child custody is not the right of every parent it is the right of every child to live with the parent most suited to meet the child’s needs and it is the right of every child wherever possible to have contact with the parent who does not look after them on a daily basis.