I read an interesting and unusual article this week about 180 divorce petitions being dismissed in what has been called ‘industrial scale’ fraud.

It was only after an eagle eyed member of court staff noticed that two divorce petitions involving Italian parties gave the same address as their place of residence.  After a bit of detective work it transpired that this address was just a post office box and no one could actually reside there and yet 180 divorce petitions across the country had gave this address as their place of residence in England and thus they claimed habitual residence in this country enabling them to divorce here rather than in Italy. All the divorces were orchestrated by one person who charged quite hefty fees to deal with the proceedings.

It seems that the motive in claiming habitual residence in this country rather than divorce in Italy is because the divorce process is