Britain’s most senior family judge is calling for a review of the law on how couples’ assets are split on divorce after a series of high-profile disputes between husbands and wives.

Sir Mark Potter, president of the Family Division and head of Family Justice, said that the law was ripe for a review because of dissatisfaction over such awards and the fact that Britain was out of step with Europe.

He also gave strong support to proposals to give unmarried couples some legal rights when they split.

Sir Mark told The Times that case law on the division of a couple’s assets was not “so confused or lacking in clarity that lawyers cannot give their clients proper advice”, but there was growing dissatisfaction over the level of awards in big-money divorce cases. He was one of three appeal court judges who, in May, upheld a £48 million award to Beverley Charman from her former husband, John – the biggest to be ordered by a British court.

Mr Charman had argued that an offer he had made to his wife of £20 million was more than enough because she had been “a housewife” and he had played a bigger role in amassing the family’s £131 million fortune.

Sir Mark said that English courts now made such decisions in the context of the European Union, where many other countries had sets of rules on ownership of matrimonial property. Taking cases for a ruling up to the House of Lords, Britain’s highest court, was not the answer, he said.

The law lords did not have the resources “to indulge in comparative studies as a prelude to establishing new principles in what is, essentially, a social policy field”. That, he added, “renders our matrimonial property regime ripe for review by the Law Commission.”

Sir Mark also believes that, if a couple’s property and assets are to be divided on the basis of need, compensation and sharing, then the idea of giving prenuptial contracts statutory force should be examined.

He made clear that he backed proposals published in July by the Law Commission, the Government’s law reform watchdog, for a framework of legal rights for unmarried couples. He said: “I share the widespread view of our lawyers and academics that the present state of the law fails to meet the needs of separating opposite-sex cohabitants who have money or property issues to resolve, particularly where children are involved.”

He also criticised the publication of the names and addresses of judges on the internet by campaigning groups.

In his first public comments about the actions by groups such as Fathers4 Justice – which now has more than 50 names of “disapproved” judges on its website – he insisted that the judiciary would not be intimidated.

He said that such action “will not prevent those judges identified from continuing conscientiously to carry out their judicial task”. He added: “It is difficult to see how publishing the names and addresses of judges of whom some fathers’ groups disapprove can properly be regarded as necessary, useful or relevant to the debate concerning open family courts.”

Sir Mark, 70, took over as became the senior family judge in April 2005, heading the family justice system, which is the target of angry fathers’ groups who say that it is unfair and biased when deciding issues such as contact with children.

F4J castigates the family justice as biased and unfair – and says that the system is closed to scrutiny because it operates largely behind closed doors.

Sir Mark, and many other senior judges, believe that the media should be admitted to family proceedings – except those concerning adoption – “provided the court retains a wide discretion to exclude the media in the interest of justice in appropriate circumstances for the whole or part of the case”.But in a recent consultation paper ministers have retreated from the idea of opening the family courts and instead proposed removing the media’s right of access to family proceedings in magistrates’ courts.

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