Mostyn J. F’s application for extension of extended civil restraint order (ECRO) and M’s application for permission pursuant to ECRO to bring a Schedule 1 application for a capitalised school fees order and variation of general maintenance (to be backdated).

This was M’s fourth application under Schedule 1; the first was dismissed by consent, the second resulted in an order for periodical payments but dismissed an application for a school fees order. The third was to reopen proceedings under Part III, Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 which resulted in the hearing in October 2019 at which M was not in attendance and Mostyn J made the ECRO of his own motion, striking out the M’s application as duplicative.

Separate Children Act proceedings resulted in a fact-finding, at which 26 of the 27 allegations made by M were found to have been “fabricated” in a judgment handed down in November 2019. M applied for permission to appeal those findings but withdrew her application – thereby accepting the findings made against her.

Mostyn J extended the ECRO as he was ‘satisfied that the father needs the maximum protection from prospective unmeritorious claims’, which he found likely given the findings at the fact finding hearing, the background of original ECRO and the M’s written and oral submissions in this application.

M filed expert forensic evidence in support of her application, without permission and in breach of the directions order. Mostyn J places no weight on the evidence as it was filed ‘in blatant breach of the law’, was not signed in accordance with FPR 25.14(2), the expert relied on evidence disclosed in previous proceedings, the sharing of which would be a contempt of court and the expert did not seek the F’s clarification on issues.

Mostyn J refuses permission to bring school fees or lump sum application as M could not show there had been an agreement, plan or understanding that the child would be privately educated and a previous finding already stated that private education was inappropriate in this case. Permission granted for variation of general maintenance on the basis the F’s income was likely to have increased since the previous order but permission refused for the backdating of that variation.