Almost everything the world knows about how the Al Maktoum family treated its women became public because of one woman who had the standing, the money and the passport to sue. Princess Haya bint Hussein did not set out to expose anything. She went to an English court to keep her children. The rest followed.

A Jordanian princess in Dubai

Haya is a daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan and a half-sister of the current king, Abdullah II. Educated in England, a former Olympic show jumper, she married Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in 2004 as his sixth wife. She was the only one of his wives with a public profile, and for fifteen years she was the acceptable face of the Dubai royal household on the international circuit — racing, equestrian sport, charity work.

In April 2019 she left for the United Kingdom with the couple’s two children, then aged twelve and eight. Court documents later recorded that her relationship with her husband had broken down and that she had begun a relationship with a British bodyguard, and that she had asked for a divorce shortly before leaving. She has said she left because she was afraid.

What was in front of the judge

Sheikh Mohammed applied in London for the summary return of the children to Dubai. Haya applied for them to be made wards of the English court, for a forced marriage protection order relating to her daughter, and for a non-molestation order for herself. That turned a custody dispute into a hearing about whether the children would be safe in Dubai — and therefore into a hearing about how the ruler of Dubai had treated other members of his family.

She described anonymous notes left in her private rooms, including one telling her that her life was over, and a firearm left where she would find it. She said she had felt increasingly isolated within the royal household after she began asking questions about her stepdaughters.

The March 2020 findings

Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division, published his fact-finding conclusions in March 2020 after media organisations successfully argued that publication was in the public interest. He found, on the civil standard of proof, that Sheikh Mohammed had ordered and orchestrated the abduction and forced return of his daughters Shamsa in 2000 and Latifa in 2002 and 2018, and that he had conducted a campaign of intimidation against Haya. One allegation — that arrangements had been made for the couple’s young daughter to marry the Saudi crown prince — was not found proved.

Sheikh Mohammed denied the findings and said the case concerned private family matters. He had fought hard to keep the judgments sealed and lost.

Pegasus

In October 2021 the same judge found that the phones of Haya, two of her solicitors and several associates had been targeted with Pegasus, the military-grade spyware sold by the Israeli firm NSO Group to state clients only, and that this had been done with Sheikh Mohammed’s express or implied authority. One of the lawyers involved sits in the House of Lords. The judge’s assessment was that the ruler was prepared to use the machinery of the state to get what he considered to be his due.

That finding travelled further than the family case. It was one of the first times a court anywhere had ruled that a specific head of government had used commercial spyware against named individuals — and the targets were lawyers conducting litigation in a British court.

The record award

In December 2021 Mr Justice Moor ordered a settlement of more than £554 million, believed to be the largest ever made by a divorce court in England and Wales. The structure of it is the point. Haya did not seek a share of her former husband’s fortune for herself. The bulk of the money was for security: a lump sum of £251.5 million payable within three months, a bank guarantee of around £290 million underpinning annual maintenance of £11 million, plus education costs and arrears.

The judge’s reasoning was blunt. He cited the abductions of Shamsa and Latifa and the phone hacking, and concluded that the children needed lifetime protection because of the risk posed by their own father. In March 2022 McFarlane issued a final ruling granting Haya sole responsibility for the children and describing a consistent pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour towards family members who defied him.

What it changed, and what it did not

Haya’s case is the only one of these stories with a resolution. She lives in London. Her children are wards of an English court. The money was ordered.

What it did not do is reach anyone still inside the UAE. The findings about Shamsa and Latifa were made in a case neither of them was a party to, by a court with no power over Dubai, in proceedings that only happened because a woman with a Jordanian royal passport and access to senior British lawyers was able to get on a plane. That is the uncomfortable measure of the whole affair: the remedy was available in proportion to the standing of the person seeking it.

Sources

Drawn from the published judgments of the Family Division of the High Court of England and Wales (March 2020, October 2021, December 2021 and March 2022) and contemporaneous reporting including the Washington Post on the Pegasus ruling and the Irish Times on the financial settlement.