Time to consider financial responsibility
Our continued commitment to do everything within our powers to make more difference for more children can
mean non-payers finding themselves in court, without a driving license or even sent to prison...
A non-resident parent from Somerset persistently avoided paying child maintenance for his two children, who lived with separate parents with care. He had two separate child maintenance debts, of £13,902 and £7,940.
He continually ignored letters from us reminding him of what he owed and warning him that we intended to pass his case to the courts. We tried a number of times to get him to pay by taking money straight from his wages but he repeatedly changed his job.
The man was summoned to a court hearing to take place in July 2006. At the hearing the magistrate gave the man a one-year suspended driving licence ban, and ordered him to pay £150 per month towards the child maintenance he owed.
He failed to make these payments and a review of his case was arranged with the court in December 2006. The man didn't turn up to the hearing so a warrant for arrest without bail was issued.
He finally attended a review in March 2007 and the magistrate sent him to prison for 42 days.
