Our thanks to David for this. A very interesting case. The man was awarded damages of £40,000 although he’d paid over £80,000 in maintenance to support a child which his ex-wife knew wasn’t his. So the ex-wife stole more than £40,000 from him. If this is ‘punishment’, I’m a sherry trifle.
The damages should have been £140,000, to start deterring women from this heinous crime.
On the positive side, I believe an award of this size is unprecedented. The highest award I can recall in previous cases was around £15,000. The judge in this case was a woman. We salute her for the £40,000 award, even though it should have been much higher.
It is an important service to have such information. After the hard work of the election I hope J4MB will be able to publish such examples of the law being used by men. Of iv not J4MB an allied site. I find men oblivious to both their rights ( for instance about sexual coercion or paternity fraud of various sorts) and to the fact that equality laws apply to men too ( that they can use equality legislation when treated less fairly due to their sex even though almost all publicity assumes ‘sex’ means woman). Publicising this information would help men to use the gender neutral laws as much as women do.
A number of years ago I was surprised to read that about 50% of cases dealt with by the Finnish sex equality organisation were from men. In such a small country perhaps it is easier to spread the message. But our law is built out of case law and so if there are not cases then it will not address men’s rights.