Many of our readers will have seen stories in the press lately about the singer Amy Winehouse and her husband Blake Fielder-Civil’s marital difficulties. While Blake was in prison for assault and perverting the course of justice, a carefree Amy was photographed by a pool in St Lucia with a fellow holidaymaker. Newspapers have since reported that Blake has consulted solicitors about divorcing Amy on the fact of her adultery. In this article we explore what may be in store for Blake and Amy in doing this.

A petition for divorce cannot be submitted to the court before one year from the date of the marriage. The reason for this is to prevent hasty decisions to end short marriages. Amy and Blake married on 18th May 2007 in Miami, Florida so they have met this first criterion.

The second criterion that Blake needs to meet is to prove to the court that the marriage has “irretrievably broken down”. He can base this on the fact of her alleged adultery and by confirming that he finds it intolerable to live with Amy as a result of her alleged adultery.

The court must be satisfied that the act of alleged adultery has taken place. It is often quite difficult to prove. As such solicitors would only normally proceed with an adultery petition if the other party had agreed that they would admit to the alleged adultery in writing. If they will not agree to this then it is possible to use circumstantial evidence. In 2007 8,080 divorce petitions based on adultery were granted to husbands. This compares with 15,045 of the same granted to wives.

The more usual course of action would be for Blake to use Amy’s alleged adultery as an example of her “unreasonable behaviour” and to show the court that by spending time with another man, Amy had behaved in such a way that Blake cannot reasonably be expected to live with Amy. In 2007 this was the commonest fact relied on to show the breakdown of the marriage. 13,656 divorces based on the unreasonable behaviour of wives were granted to husbands. 47,348 divorces were based on the unreasonable behaviour of husbands.

Amy has reportedly indicated that she will not agree to a divorce and presumably rejects those allegations. It is possible to defend a divorce petition if she gives notice to Blake within seven days of receiving his divorce petition that that was what she was going to do. She would have to file a defence to the allegations Blake made in his petition. The court will then consider the evidence before it as to whether the marriage had irretrievably broken down. However, in practice defending a petition is very rare because in reality it is unlikely that a marriage can continue where one party wants to divorce.

As such it may well not be worth Amy defending a divorce petition. In fact, she may be well advised from a financial perspective to get out of the marriage sooner rather than later. This is more likely to be where the dispute will arise. We will explore this further in next month’s article.

Eleanora Bryant
Solicitor for the Family Team
01622 690691
www.brachers.co.uk
eleanorabryant@brachers.co.uk