http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/08/nweb108.xmlThe marriages of couples who meet on the internet are posing a problem for the courts when they go wrong, a senior judge said yesterday.
Lord Justice Thorpe made the comment as he ruled for a 35-year-old mother who wants to go back to her home town in the United States with her two daughters after a "brief and stormy" marriage to a British man she met online.
"The internet is originating cross-country relationships, cross-country marriages and cross-country parenting," Lord Justice Thorpe said. When such families disintegrate, parents often want to go back to their home countries, he added. This causes problems over "maintaining parental relationships and contact".
Lord Justice Thorpe claimed: "Cases in which the parties meet through the internet are becoming increasingly common in these courts. When the cross-country family disintegrates, there will be a reversion to the parental countries of origin with consequential problems over maintaining parental relationships and contact."