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Incident Tracker / United Kingdom

The Father v The Mother & Ors, [2025] EWHC 2135 (Fam)

·High Court of England and Wales (Family Division)·UKDismissal

In the High Court (Family Division), a self-represented father seeking a judge's recusal submitted authorities that HHJ Bailey found were not genuine and appeared generated by AI. The case was referred to Mrs Justice Lieven as Family Presiding Judge, who dismissed the application, citing the Divisional Court's Ayinde ruling on fabricated citations.

Court
High Court of England and Wales (Family Division)
Date
2025-07-30
Who used the AI
Not recorded
AI tool
Not identified in the record
Conduct
A self-represented father applying for a judge's recusal submitted written authorities that the first-instance judge, HHJ Bailey, found were not genuine and appeared to have been generated by AI. An exact count of the fabricated cases is not specified in the judgment.
Outcome
Dismissal
Penalty
No monetary penalty recorded
Regulatory outcome
No separate regulatory disposition recorded
Status
Verified against listed sources
Last checked
2026-09-11

What was fabricated or misused

  • A number of previous authorities, in particular relating to ASD, in the father's written C2 application — many were not genuine; judgment did not list names or count

What the court said

“HHJ Bailey realised that many of these cases were not genuine, and the submission appeared to have been generated by Artificial Intelligence (“AI”).”
High Court of England and Wales (Family Division), [16]
“I did not consider there was any ground for HHJ Bailey to recuse herself, however I decided to list the matter for a further hearing before me on 8 July 2025 to determine the F’s applications.”
High Court of England and Wales (Family Division), [17]
“The F relied upon faked cases without apparently making any effort to check their veracity.”
High Court of England and Wales (Family Division), [58]
“In the light of this litigation conduct I consider it appropriate to make an order that the F pays the M’s costs in the sum of £5,900.63.”
High Court of England and Wales (Family Division), [59]

Timeline

  1. Father applied for a child arrangements order.
  2. DJ Bailey made a final order for the children to live with the mother and have indirect contact.
  3. Father applied to reopen proceedings based on his ASD diagnosis.
  4. The existing s.91(14) order expired.
  5. Recusal application came before HHJ Bailey; she identified non-genuine AI authorities.
  6. Matter came before Mrs Justice Lieven, who listed a further hearing.
  7. High Court refused reopening, extended s.91(14) protection and ordered costs.

Why this case matters

Father v Mother extends the UK record after Ayinde v Haringey into private family proceedings with a self-represented parent. The AI issue was one part of wider litigation conduct, but it mattered to costs because the court found the father relied on faked cases without checking them. The judgment is also different from Harber v HMRC, where false authorities were central to the appeal; here the court used the incident to manage recusal and repeat-application issues while protecting children’s anonymity.

Practice note

A litigant in family proceedings who relies on authorities should download the judgment from The National Archives, BAILII or a law-report source and check that each case exists and says what the submission claims. If a disability or neurodiversity point is raised, the cited cases should be real authorities tied to that issue, not AI-generated names.

Primary sources for this incident

Related regulation records for this incident

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Cite this record

SafeLegalAI Global Legal AI Incident Tracker, “The Father v The Mother & Ors, [2025] EWHC 2135 (Fam)”, safelegalai.com/tracker/father-v-mother-2025-ewhc-2135-fam (accessed 2026-09-16). Data: CC BY 4.0.

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