During a legal application in the family court to clarify, assess and make a decision after my divorce about financial circumstances someone decided to remove my litigation capacity without even interviewing me, applying or asking about it.  I almost immediately became homeless STILL NOT KNOWING IT HAD BEEN IMPLEMENTED IN THE COUNTY FAMILY COURT.

I found out about the capacity hearing which had been disguised as a financial hearing. I attended it with my lawyer who drafted a maintenance document passed to me and later printed officially by the court after the hearing. There was to be an expenses weekly maintenance payment of £200 per week. I wonder whether the order might have been clearer to say that the £200 should be transferred from the marital assets but was nevertheless labelled an Interim Order. It was ordered that I would have accommodation with two bedrooms for living with my children. I was already living in a two bedroom apartment which I rented using proceeds of my liquidated share of a family partnership but was required to look at moving to a totally different home for the chance that a property could be bought not rented except noone did provide that property and i had t move anyway.

No other documentation was produced or shown to me on that day or subsequently as a follow up, and the brief had a further private discussion with my ex husband and his lawyer in my absence while I was asked to wait in a waiting room.  before the hearing. After this day a further hearing took place where she "removed [herself] from the court record". 

The Official Solicitor

Months later an official solicitor's administrator started quite frequently contacting me to ask for information about myself by email through my Gmail and Aol accounts while I was still homeless and when I was using a library to access the internet. I was quite nervous and worried about what they wanted or intended and I had not heard about my capacity being assessed before their emails and it seems that there was some concern. Also I did not know what was an Official Solicitor's role nor how they might be any more official than any other solicitor. 

This followed and was at the time of also some years of interruptions and misjudgements by the police about why I was standing, sitting, eating and drinking tea and coffee at a station not to mention sheltering in shop doorways, visiting my children at their fathers home, and defending a child from being what looked like rough treatment. I had been physically locked in a cell with no shoes on a dirty floor and an open WC, handcuffed quite roughly in the street without my rights being read, and asked and interfered with where I was going and trying to go to, removed by porters from a college where students took me in and forced to walk down stairs without my contact lenses or glasses. I could have spent the time in the gym for a more streamlined result as my body has reacted over time to the physical manhandling.

The Official Solicitor's administrator was requesting information about my  assumed lack of capacity including wanting me to interrupt instructions i was giving to a new lawyer firm to represent me. The request was that I should attend a psychiatric assessment for the official solicitor.'s report It seems that while I was homeless and not using legal representation there was no need to update my capacity and I could sleep rough on the street, in stations, doorways and use food handouts but any time I wanted to use a lawyer to represent my requirements and instructions then it appears they needed to check I was up to it or that their capacity order was. Collaboration with my own lawyer must already have started on the capacity order without my knowledge almost as soon as I was required to pay her fees in advance as a lump sum which she used up on various letters, emails and phone chat, did nothing for me and then remained a further bill of £2000 or more which she then decided not to pursue except it still exists.. I discovered that she seemed incapable of being honest with me or representing me fairly and the financial position I found myself in as a result of her representation resulted in homelessness for me instead of the assurance that i thought using a lawyer would bring for my self and my children for whom I was the main carer until family law ended our home base arrangements by submitting to the rights of the person with the biggest bank balance to become the main carer although assisted by his other in reality.. 

The way that the lawyer did not check or ask how they should continue or carry out my instructions in specific areas and treated me as if I was an observer n my own life like it was some privilege to be in their presence. It was not a pleasant experience either being refused by lawyer firms as a client, misrepresented by them or as I feel they cheated the system in place to help me and my children. I made my own official complaints to the Legal Ombudsman and to the Solicitors Regulation Authority who replied in detail to my letters and complaints.

As I understand is my ex husband was not asked for his litigation capacity to be assessed. I did not provide the further psychiatric assessment and their was no detail about who would be paying or choosing the psychiatrist at first and even when that was provided I was not in a position to feel comfortable with it.

After using this law firm as I thought I was agreeing to do,  it sometimes became difficult to get simple requests heard and acted upon and I was often misunderstood, ignored, or steered in directions I had not asked for. I doubt I would have used them except that I changed over when my mother died during the process and was concerned there should be some historical landmark. There was manipulation of both dates and agendas. This being the first example.After many months and in 2014 I visited the Citizens Advice Bureau for advice with how to continue with th financial settlement and what i could do in my homeless situation. My appointment the previous Christmas Holiday was cancelled as I stood in the queue due to staff numbers being too low. When I made it to the charity's offices they were able to share that a final settlement had also been processed in my absence and that i could obtain the document by applying to the court and paying for a copy. This order made no further decisions but was final and was already 2 years out of date when I received it. It appears that the hearing was again used in both my absence and y ex husbands absence to have another discussion about my litigation capacity, this time deciding to restore my capacity with an official document which I obtained a couple of years ago in about 2019 after it was ordered 7 years previously. I did not receive anything from the court in that whole time and yet the document I paid for was available for collection and was also posted to my job centre address.

Had the Citizens Advice Bureau not found the document for me then i do not know where i would even be today with thinking I had no response at all from the court. At least I was able to update the application information before the start of the pandemic if only get my Permissions Order Application for litigation challenged  and refused at a hearing in 2018 and then no further help to take it forward at that time.

Concluding a divorce financial settlement are now overdue by a further 10 years from being final but incomplete in their conclusive remarks and decisions. Subsequent personal and family administrative matters have increased with no solutions found to the earlier problems and I appear to be the only person in all this that was marginalised to unemployment benefits when that might not have been my ultimate  destination given a proper settlement conclusion and decision with use of the marital assets rather than ongoing charitable support. Life has increased the amount of unresolved items from the family court which have impacted other areas ad continue to become entangled. 

My home base already restarted in the noughties through renting  and then eviction, further renting and further discrimination about  finances and tenancies.  Needs to be defined and clarified in the proper division of assets rather than all under one direction and  where there is present risk posed by family members potentially writing things off and squandering  opportunities and responsibilities not only to build security but to repair and regroup after fragile  and difficult times. 

The financial settlement cost thousands in lawyers fees, used up several more court hearings than seemed necessary and was concluded in 2012 with a financial claim being dismissed. My own claim was not heard as it was swapped quite near the beginning to being the claim of my ex husband. 

Child Law

I did not and could not get advice to help me about child law, which now appears not to be included in the appointment when seeing a  Family Lawyer. I discovered this last week (today's date is 13 March 2023) after losing contact for several years as my children who i saw often for a time and were coming to live with me became remote and I had nowhere to live for several years not knowing really what happened to them. One lawyer said that I would not be able to have the children to live with me without saying why but as if it was accepted and with no explanation. I did not return for further appointments there.  It was not made clear or even said that child law is separate from family law and that a Family Lawyer does not practice it. In the earlier meetings it was a holistic approach and it seemed to be included and was being talked about by the lawyers in their "advice" monologues and Silver Fitzgerald answered questions about it until I was no longer able to even find lawyers to represent me. 

When i was in appointmentsI tried to bring the conversation round to child matters as it seemed excluded from the content of our meetings or avoided and we pressed on with the finances, the children mentioned or asked about by me at appointments and then back to the subject matter of the finances. Years later I am left feeling that perhaps I did not say yes enough or did not make it clear that I expected to be represented this way, that child law happens automatically and has to be considered and discussed but it was not tackled there or anywhere else.

I did not have a contact problem with my children and was the main carer. It was during the use of Family Law that I became unable to connect in person to see my children but not from using law or any specific use of it but rather as some by product of family law and the divorce and using family law to exclude me from everything of value in my life.

I am still trying to complete an MA.