XM v XF [2021] EWHC 1279 (Fam)

Judgment: The marriage had broken down one year before and the parents were now living separately, both in Dubai. The court was concerned with the arrangements for two children, aged 6 and 3, in relation to the time they would spend between their parents' homes. Both parents accepted that court intervention was necessary because of their inability to agree a way forward. The children had shown increasing signs of distress. Roberts J found that the children had indeed suffered emotional harm through this period, and the older child's insecurities had not been properly addressed in the very early days of the breakdown of the parents' relationship. The father accepted that he had exposed the children to far too much of the parental conflict. However, his actions had not been sufficient to provide an evidential basis for the restrictions on his parental responsibility which the mother sought. Roberts J ordered a three-stage set of arrangements, which at first involved two overnight stays on alternate weeks, and then eventually four overnight stays per fortnight.