Mathew Thorpe

[2] He was appointed a High Court judge on 11 April 1988,[3] assigned to the Family Division, and received the customary knighthood.

[1] He retired on 31 July 2013 He has presided over a number of important cases which have influenced the evolution of family law.

It was submitted on behalf of the father that it would be gender discrimination to decide residence in favour of the mother: if the roles were to be reversed, a father who proposed to abandon a lucrative career with the consequence that his wife and children would suffer a dramatic downturn in the standard of living, would not have the smallest chance of being given a residence order as his reward.

Thorpe LJ said, in connection with two cases involving children being removed to Australia and South Africa respectively, that to frustrate "natural emigration" risked the survival of the new family or blighted its potential for "fulfilment and happiness".

He said, Often there will be a price to be paid in welfare terms by the diminution of the children's contact with their father and his extended familyHe said that it was also possible for a father to take employment abroad after separation or to marry a foreigner and there would be the same loss of contact: These are the tides of chance and life and in the exercise of its paternalistic jurisdiction it is important that the court should recognise the force of these movements and not frustrate them unless they are shown to be contrary to the welfare of the child.Thorpe was appointed in 2010 to head a working party of the General Medical Council to consider and offer advice to doctors on matters relating to child protection.