3PB’s Hamish Dunlop in Supreme Court today representing husband in the groundbreaking Owens v Owens divorce case

17th May 2018

Hamish Dunlop, Head of 3PB Barristers Family Law Group, led by Nigel Dyer QC, and instructed by solicitors Hughes Paddison of Cheltenham, has represented the husband and respondent Hugh Owens in the Supreme Court’s hearing of the groundbreaking Owens v Owens divorce case.

The Supreme Court today, Thursday 17 May,  will consider an application from the appellant and wife Tini Owens challenging the earlier rulings by the Court of Appeal and the original trial judge that she would not be granted a divorce despite an unhappy relationship. Both Courts found that the husband’s behaviour had been tantamount to ‘minor altercations of a kind to be expected in a marriage’.

Hamish Dunlop, commenting on the Supreme Court hearing in London, said : “Mrs Owens originally failed to persuade the trial judge that her husband had behaved in such a way that she could not be expected to live with him.  The Court of Appeal found no basis for criticising that decision.  By her appeal to the Supreme Court, Mrs Owens now contends that over the last 50 years, the courts have consistently misinterpreted the statutory test correctly.   In fact, what she seeks is divorce on demand by one party to the marriage.  That is tantamount to a change in the statute; and a matter for Parliament, not the courts."

View Hamish Dunlop's profile here.