9 months behind bars for non-disclosure

This is yet another indication of how increasingly intolerant the family courts are becoming with spouses who refuse to disclose their assets. Judge Nicholas Mostyn has sent a husband to prison for a record 9 months for failing to disclose financial information in matrimonial financial proceedings

Mostyn J has imposed an immediate 9-month custodial sentence, thought to be the longest immediate custody ever imposed for non-disclosure in the family courts on a husband who has systematically failed to comply with orders of the court.

In Sarah Kimura Al-Baker v Abdul Amir Al-Baker [2015] the wife issued proceedings on 6 January 2015 following a 45-year marriage, secured on the parties' joint domicile. The husband subsequently produced a Talaq divorce said to have been effected in the UAE. Wife applied for, and was granted, permission to bring an application under Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984.

As a result of these proceedings, disclosure orders were made against H. He was described in court by counsel as 'pulling up the drawbridge'. W applied for him to be committed for contempt.