Child support — maintenance order — Family Proceedings Act 1980. The parties were the separated parents of one child. The mother lived in the United Kingdom with the child and had succeeded in obtaining an order for maintenance in the UK Family Court for £500 per month, and had applied for an order confirming the maintenance order in New Zealand. The father, who was living in New Zealand, did not dispute that an order for maintenance should be made but disagreed on the amount payable. The father had submitted that the order did not take into account his ability to pay, the fact that he had been unable to have contact with his child, and that he had already made maintenance payments for a number of years. The Court used information given by the father to recalculate using the UK child support calculator, which resulted in an amount payable of £462 a month. There was no evidence that the father fell into the specific category of hardship preventing him from being able to make the payments. The Court reasoned that a downward adjustment to the calculated figure was appropriate due to the limited information about the mother's income, and made an order that the father pay £400 a month. Judgment Date: 8 December 2023. * * * Note: names have been changed to comply with legal requirements. * * *