I am not an attorney although I worked in the field of forensics as an expert witness, dealing with facts and evidence and therefore don't "practice" law, lol! Go join findlaw.com you can do a lot of research there and almost anything else on the net, although you may have to pay for some of it, in most cases there is an option of a one day or document fee which may be far less than the time and effort going to the library to research it.
Here is a Daubert link & forum for asking questions:
http://www.daubertontheweb.com/
and on electronic discovery:
http://www.law.com/special/supplement/e_discovery/
http://www.discoveryresources.org/
Here are 2 related sites with information re international child custody:
International Parental Child Abduction About the State Dept. International Parental Child Abduction. May 2004
http://travel.state.gov/abduct.html go to the section on United KIngdom for specific information and addressess, remember you are now dealing with more than state law.
The Office of Children's Issues US Department of State Washington, DC Office of Children's Issues handles only international parental child abduction and international http://travel.state.gov/children's_issues.html
Both sites have links to other sources including legal so you may find something there.
Insofar as emails as evidence, I would suggest that since the computer was jointly owned and that there wasn't password protection, privacy laws may not apply, however the internet is interstate and covered by U.S.C. as well as state law. You might want to have a qualified "forensic" download of the computer's "cache" by a Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, that is if there is access to the computer and it's cache has not already been erased, that should remove all question as to admissability. Here is a link to Experts, 3 of which are in Michigan:
Michigan Computer Evidence Discovery Expert Witnesses
http://expertpages.com/experts.php/computer_evidence_discovery_michigan.htm
Otherwise, you will have to authenticate the data if it is stored on disc and/or printed out, because of course these could be changed, but again, the stored disc can be examined for dates etc. Also if the emails were stored on a secure server, that is a possibility as well. Ca. EC 623 covers Estoppel I don't know about Michigan Rules of Court?
I recently was involved in a case where my own emails were in quesiton, they brought into court as paper copies, many months old, waved around, they had intentionally not submitted them as evidence and claimed they said something they did not, needless to say, this was hearsay and not authenticated, but can still leave an impression. Luckily I have both hard copies and the emails are stored on a secure server to prove what they said when I sent them.
UPDATE: DISCOVERY AND ADMISSIBILITY OF ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE
White v. White, 344 N.J. Super. 211, 781 A.2d 85 Ch. Div. 2001. The wife in White sought to use certain emails retrieved off of the family computer as evidence in a custody case. The husband argued that admission of the documents violated New Jerseys state wiretap act, plus an alleged common-law ....
It is better to recognize you don't know everything and do something about it rather than to not know, not adimt or do something about it.
Take Care I hope this helps.
