Urgent: Where an order is sought as a matter of urgency, an application may be made to the Court for an emergency order without the requirement for the Applicant to have attended at a MIAM. The categories of urgent application justifying such an exemption are set out in rule 3.8(c) FPR and include cases in which:
- There is a risk to the life, liberty, or the physical safety of the prospective applicant or his or her family, or his or her home;
- Any delay caused by attending a MIAM would cause:
- Risk of harm to the child;
- A risk of unlawful removal of a child from the United Kingdom or risk of unlawful retention of a child who is currently outside England and Wales;
- A significant risk of a miscarriage of justice;
- Unreasonable hardship to the prospective applicant;
- Irretrievable problems in dealing with the dispute (including the irretrievable loss of significant evidence).
- There is a significant risk that in the period necessary to schedule and attend a MIAM, proceedings relating to the dispute will be brought in another state in which a valid claim to jurisdiction may exist, such that a court in that other State would be seised of the dispute before a court in England and Wales.