Over twenty years ago, my then wife threw a wobbly and went off back to Germany, taking our two little babies with her.
The Child Benefit was being paid into our joint account, so I waited three or four weeks on the off-chance she'd return, but when it was clearly she wouldn't, I got in touch with the Child Benefit people to tell them about this 'change in circumstances.
They promptly stopped the payments and asked me to repay the three weeks' worth I had received after the children had left the country, which I did.
Now, this all seemed perfectly fair and reasonable to me. When did they change the rules that the UK has to pay Child Benefit for children living abroad if one or the other parent lives here? How do they check that the children even exist?
More importantly, should I have just kept schtum on the basis that sooner or later, EU law would swing round in my favour and make it legal?
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