Joseph Landman, instructed by Ella Moxey of BP Collins, appeared successfully in the High Court in Re X (A Child) (Husband of Child’s Mother: Declaration of No Parental Responsibility) [2025] EWHC 2542 (Fam).
The case considered parental responsibility for a child in circumstances where a husband, who was married to the mother and placed on the birth certificate, later found out that he was not the biological father. There was a question as to whether he obtained parental responsibility by virtue of the marital presumption, or whether it was never obtained because he never was the biological father.
Mr Justice Harrison held that the common law presumption that a husband of a mother is the father of the child is a rule of evidence, and that, in section 2 of the Children Act, father means ‘biological father’ as opposed to ‘husband of child’s mother.’