Stodgell v Stodgell

Judgment

Lord Justice Hughes:

There were listed before us two related applications for leave to appeal. They arose in the context of matrimonial claims for ancillary relief against a husband and father who had been convicted and made the subject of a confiscation order. The principal application before us is the wife’s. She seeks to challenge the decision of Holman J that her application for ancillary relief cannot proceed until the confiscation order has been discharged, at which point it would be possible to see whether there are any other assets which she can attack. In the months before Holman J’s decision a number of orders had been made by different judges permitting the drawing of money from funds of the husband which had been frozen under a restraint order. As I at least understand it, most of those had been made without objection by the Revenue. Resistance was lodged, however, to the last in that series of orders made by Charles J on 6 June 2008, and an application for permission to appeal his order is listed also before us. However, we have determined to deal first with the substantive application of the wife.

The husband and wife began to live together in either 1993 or 1994 and married in 1997. The family consisted in addition to the spouses of a son of the wife by an earlier relationship, F, who is now either 20 or 21, and the parties’ joint son, R, born on 27 August 1997 and now 11. The marriage broke down in about 2003 although both spouses remained initially in the former matrimonial home in Torquay. The wife petitioned for divorce in May 2004. The decree nisi was pronounced in July 2004. She left the house under order in May 2005.

The husband traded throughout the marriage as an art dealer. He had been fraudulently evading income tax for several years. The Revenue investigation went back to 1988. He was given the opportunity to remedy his situation by making a certificate of full disclosure and if that declaration had been honest he might well have escaped prosecution. However, it was not. He was charged in 2006 with criminal offences of cheating the Revenue and making false statements. The restraint order which I have mentioned was made at or about that time. He eventually pleaded guilty on 18 June 2007 to seven counts of cheating the Revenue and two of making false declarations, and he was sentenced in September 2007 to three years’ imprisonment. Subsequently on 20 November 2007 the Crown Court made a confiscation order in the sum of