Legal News

The Court of Appeal has upheld a ruling that an anaesthetist who abandoned his wife and children in 2011 and moved to Bahrain should pay his entire assets of £550,000 to his ex-wife to safeguard the future of their children.

The Daily Mail reports that 54-year-old hospital consultant Dr Essam Aly, 54, “washed his hands” of his family after leaving his 46-year-old GP wife, Enas, in 2011. He has paid no maintenance to her or child support for their children since 2012.

The consultant from Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire was outside UK jurisdiction in Bahrain, after leaving Queen's Hospital in Burton-on-Trent. His wife worked as a GP in nearby Derby.

The couple had married in 2002 and had had a son and a daughter before separating in 2011.

The court heard that Dr Aly moved to Bahrain in 2012. Since then he has entered an Islamic marriage with another woman and has a child with her.

Dr Enas Aly told Birmingham Crown Court last year that her former husband had given her no maintenance since he left the UK – she secured an injunction freezing his assets, resulting in the discovery of additional bank accounts the hospital consultant held.

In July 2014, Judge Mark Rogers awarded her the proceeds of sale of their £250,000 home in Burton-on-Trent and £310,000 held in a bank account.

However, her husband’s lawyer told the court there was “substantive unfairness” in handing his ex-wife 100% of the couple's assets.
“The court has an obligation to consider the husband's needs and the judgment is absolutely silent on that,” she told the court – and added that Dr Aly was hoping to get a job in the UK and bring his new family to the live in Britain.

The court was told he had applied for jobs and was still a paid up member of the General Medical Council, Medical Defence Union and British Medical Association.
Dr Aly’s lawyer argued that in handing his ex-wife the couple’s total assets, the judge had in effect totted up all the maintenance and child support payments due and in the future – and had awarded them in one go, which he was not allowed to do.
She added that there was evidence her client had offered to pay £40 a week in child support for each of his two children with Dr Enas Aly.

However, at the Court of Appeal, Lady Justice Macur said Dr Aly had shown himself to be “unwilling” to provide any support to his former family – and Lord Justice McCombe added:

“What was the judge supposed to do, faced with a serial defaulter, to make proper provision for this family?

“'The wife is looking after the children and the father has washed his hands of them.”

Upholding the award to Dr Enas Aly, Lord Justice McFarlane said:

“The judge had in front of him a case where he was entitled to hold there was no realistic expectation of getting any further maintenance out of the husband.
“He was beyond the reach of enforcement of courts in this country – he hadn't been paying for the previous two years.

“The judge was required, in determining the outcome of the financial provision proceedings, to give first consideration to the welfare of the two children.
“On the case before the judge, the wife was to have the sole responsibility and financial burden for bringing these children up.

“The judge, therefore, concluded that she should have the lion's share – if not all – of the assets, as she needed them to house herself in appropriate accommodation and make provision for these children.

“Thus it was that he awarded her a far more substantial lump sum than would otherwise have been the case if equality was the only yardstick.”

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