It’s also possible Bernal has advised her to settle as the court may well order less than she’s been offered. Alice will refuse to accept this.
I once went to a tribunal against someone who was claiming 10 times what the tribunal’s top award would be.
Absolutely refused to discuss any lower settlement, disagreed with all advice and representation and represented themselves - they ended up with nothing, nada, zilch, rein. Big mistake.
You typically always try to settle, especially in family court, because judges can be extremely random. And especially when it involves custody he may decide on something that suits neither parents.
Alice will have been advised to settle, whether it's 50-50, or whatever, potentially even with more money than entitled as a compromise, and she obviously doesnt have that. On all other matters she was likely to settle at some point, albeit as late as possible to drain Ioan's funds (I'm sure she will settle on the financial issues later on for example, because the risk of uncovering her secret stash is too high) but the custody stuff is too black and white. At this point I doubt she greatly cares about money here in the dimensions we talk about (the difference between sole and joint will be about 1 k per month), sharing the kids actually would give her more in the long run, it's all about inflicting pain on Ioan. And she can't allow him to have a single happy minute with his kids. So for her it's sole custody (with visitation on paper to remind him every week of the pain, perhaps she lets it happen here and there so that Ella can assault him again) or nothing. No therapy, no chaperones, just that.
And obviously
then she would try to use that fact to get more money out of him because the kids need a certain standard and it's impossible for her to get that with 3-4k/month yada yada.
She wants the cake and eat it. Like her whole life