$89,000 support bill overturned

A father who was presented with a backdated child support bill for nearly $90,000 has won a court review of the backdated part of his debt.

The man, whose name was suppressed, knew his former lover had a child but it was not until 14 years later that she contacted him and started proceedings to confirm he was the boy’s father.

DNA tests established paternity in October 2017, and the mother applied for child support about that time. In November 2017, Inland Revenue, which administers the child support collection scheme, assessed him as being liable to pay support of $89,000 backdated to 2003.

The father accepted he should pay support from the time he was confirmed as the boy’s father, but he challenged the backdating.

In evidence in the High Court at Wellington he said he had an ‘‘open’’ relationship with the mother from about 1999 or 2000 until the end of 2002.

She told him in March 2003 that she was pregnant and that he was the child’s father, but he said he was not certain that was true. He formally opposed paternity proceedings in 2016, but he agreed to a DNA test.

He asked a High Court judge to review Inland Revenue’s child support assessment.

A child support application was first filed in 2003, even though parenthood and other necessary details were not provided at the time.

In a decision issued from the High Court in Wellington this week, Justice Francis Cooke found that the 2017 application was correctly treated as a new one, since the 2003 application was refused and not pursued.