Welcome to the Roundup, where we correct, clarify and comment on media reports of family law, explain and comment on published family court judgments, and highlight other transparency news.
MEDIA COVERAGE OF FAMILY LAW, TRANSPARENCY etc
The big story from the family courts this month was the new guidance on the use of unregulated expert witnesses in proceedings.
The Law Society Gazette reported that Family Division president issues ‘firm’ guidance over unregistered experts (23 Feb 2026) which was about Sir Andrew McFarlane’s judgment in a case involving the unchartered and unregistered psychologist claiming to be an ‘expert’ on parental alienation, Melanie Gill. In Re Y (Experts and Alienating Behaviour: The Modern Approach) [2026] EWFC 38 the President issued guidance on instructing expert witnesses under s 13 of the Children and Families Act 2014, saying: ‘In future, permission should not be given under CFA, s13 for the instruction of an expert “psychologist” who is neither registered by a relevant statutory body, nor chartered by the [British Psychological Society]’. We explained the implications in a separate post, Experts and Alienating Behaviour: The Modern Approach.
The decision was also reported in the Guardian, as UK mother separated from children for years has ‘draconian’ order overturned, by Right to Equality, as A landmark judgment on ‘alienation’, child removal and experts, and by Joshua Rozenberg in his roundup post, A busy few days (23 Feb 2026). A helpful summary is in Local Government Lawyer (27 February). The legal team for the 15 year old boy at the centre of the case have commented that he wants his circumstances to be publicised in the hope that future cases like his won’t go wrong in the same way.
The President’s judgment followed an earlier one in the same case, given by Lieven J, LM (A Child) (Interim Welfare Arrangements) [2025] EWHC 3243 (Fam), and reported by Hannah Summers for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which we covered in our Dec 25-Jan 26 roundup. The case was also reported as a victory for the mother’s solicitors, as Beck Fitzgerald Act in another overturning of ‘Parental Alienation’ findings. Melanie Gill is also the subject of two pieces on 16 and 25 February by well-known journalist, Beatrix Campbell.
The Times (£) had kicked off the month with the news that Earl Spencer’s divorce deal finalised after two years (2 Feb 2026). In case you were wondering, ‘The Countess Spencer, 53, will follow convention by continuing to call herself a countess after 12 years of marriage during which she improved the family estate at Althorp, where Princess Diana, Charles Spencer’s sister, is buried. Should Earl Spencer remarry, his new wife would become the Countess Spencer, and his ex-wife would be styled as Karen, Countess Spencer, without “the” before Countess.’ But it’s not over yet. There turns out to be a sub-plot involving litigation by Professor Cat Jarman, the Earl’s girlfriend, against Karen, Countess Spencer, over misuse of private information, so finalising the divorce will not be not the end of the saga.
The Mail reported that The Traitors star Roxy Wilson reveals mum Judy had to make heartbreaking choice whether to adopt her or her sibling due to their volatile relationship (4 Feb 2026). As part of a recruitment drive launched by the government to create 10,000 more foster care placements, the TV star had chosen to disclose that when she had been born in Bristol her birth mother had been unable to care for her and her sister, and they had both been entered into the foster care system. Roxy’s life changed when her adoptive mother Judy saw an advertisement in a magazine about children in need of a family and applied to adopt her. But Judy was unable to adopt Roxy’s sister as well. The rest of the article discusses Roxy’s role in the recent series of the reality TV show The Traitors.
The Times reported that Banker who splashed joint account cash on mistress loses £4m prenup case (4 Feb 2026) saying Ardal Loh-Gronager, who had worked for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, had his divorce settlement ‘slashed’ after a judge found that he had ‘spent lavishly on another relationship’ from a joint marital account. The decision was said to demonstrate that judges will take behaviour into account when determining whether prenuptial agreements are enforceable. In a judgment ‘which was handed down in October but has only just been made public’ Mr Justice Cusworth ruled that Loh-Gronager’s payout should be ‘slashed by about £4 million’ by reason of his conduct, which showed he had anticipated a ‘lucrative a separation’ throughout his four-year marriage to his ‘enormously wealthy’ wife. Though not cited or linked to in the article, the case appears to be Wei-Lyn Loh v Ardal Loh-Gronager [2025] EWFC 483.
The BBC reported that Camp leader jailed for drugging and abusing boys (6 Feb 2026) saying Jon Ruben, a former vet and teacher running a summer camp, had used the ‘cloak of Christianity’ to carry out his attacks on vulnerable children. He had laced sweets with tranquiliser and given them to boys before sexually assaulting them. He had also drugged his wife so she would remain asleep while he committed his crimes. He had been arrested after eight children and one adult had fallen ill at Stathern Lodge, Leicestershire, in July last year. Following his conviction at Leicester Crown Court he was jailed for more than 23 years. This may not be the end of the story: the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Children Partnerships had confirmed that any previous involvement Ruben had with young people, including his employment as a teacher, was now the subject of an ongoing police investigation.
The Times reported that Men are more likely to wed after 65 than in their early twenties (7 Feb 2026) saying that ‘research published this weekend’ suggests that more people are now marrying later in life. The research, including charts and graphs, appeared to come from a report titled “I Do?” published by a think tank called the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), and cites figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing that ‘the marriage rate among pension-aged men stands at 5.6 per 1,000, compared with 4.1 per 1,000 among men in their early twenties’. The overall picture is bleaker. The CSJ’s report suggests the country is facing a ‘near-total collapse in marriage’, particularly among young people. But divorce trends also run counter to perceptions, with rates continuing to fall since their peak in the 1990s. The report includes positive interviews with two couple who have married in later life.
The Mail reported that Marquess of Bath backs legal action to make sure son born via a surrogate mother in the US can inherit share of £157million family fortune (9 Feb 2026). This was about the case of Cator v Thynn [2026] EWHC 209 (Ch), in which the Eighth Marquess of Bath and his wife Emma sought to ensure that their son, Henry, who had been born via surrogacy in America, could still inherit under the terms of a family trust, whose wording was sufficiently old-fashioned to leave the matter in doubt. The case was also reported in The Times, Aristocrat backs legal action for surrogate-born son’s inheritance (8 Feb 2026) with the more detailed explanation that ‘the trustees were seeking the court’s approval of their decision to exercise a “power of advancement” to allow the 8th Marquess to make potential provision to add Henry and his son’s future children’. Because that might affect other beneficiaries, the judge, HHJ Paul Matthews approved the appointment of a solicitor to represent their interests.
The BBC reported How a missing infant uncovered prolific baby traffickers (9 Feb 2026) which turned out to be about an historic case from 1907 in which the investigation of a missing child, supposedly handed over for adoption, led to the discovery of a baby trafficking operation. The couple running the scam would place advertisements in newspapers across the country, posing as a couple desperate to adopt a child, and offering money, which encouraged responses from desperate parents motivated by poverty or shame to give up their children. The traffickers promised the children a wonderful new life, but instead, they would take them to other parts of the country and give them to ‘baby farmers’ offering a few shillings a week to care for them. The reporter, Richard Tisdale, having dug up the story for the BBC, managed to trace the great grandson of one of the children involved.
The Express reported that ‘Our kids were taken away due to a huge NHS error – this story will terrify parents’ (14 Feb 2026). This was about a case where ‘a missed X-ray led to a couple losing not just their foster toddler – but their own children too’. The parents in question were fostering a baby boy alongside their own two sons. But when they took the foster child to hospital with a broken leg, they were arrested, interviewed and held in police cells overnight. They never saw the foster child again and were separated from their own two sons for seven months during a police and social services investigation until a paediatrician at Great Ormond Street revealed the foster child actually had Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). The foster mother has now written a book, ‘Broken’, about the ‘whole horrific story’ in the hope that the law can be changed so no other mother has to go through the same experience. The Express says that this story ‘highlights a UK fostering crisis, with approved carer numbers in England down 12% in 10 years’ which it links to the observation that ‘one in three carers will at one time face an allegation yet 97 percent of claims will prove unsubstantiated’.
The Guardian reported on Stockport man in court accused of plot to drug and rape his wife (20 Feb 2026) saying the man had appeared in court accused of conspiring with others to drug his wife and rape her while she was unconscious, and was also charged with raping and sexually assaulting his wife over a 20-year period. He was arrested last year and pleaded not guilty at Manchester Minshull Street crown court to 48 charges including multiple counts of rape and sexual assault. He appeared in the dock alongside 12 other men, whose ages range from 28 to 73. Their names have all been anonymised. A trial has been set for September this year. It all has an uncomfortable echo of the Pelicot case in France, which we wrote about in our roundup for December 2024.
The Times reported that Oxford University drops bid for anonymity in harassment tribunal (22 Feb 2026) saying the university had now abandoned its legal request for anonymity in an employment dispute in which the former head of the Saïd Business School was accused of having harassed a junior colleague. Previously, the report said, ‘an employment tribunal judge had granted anonymity to a leading university that had requested the gagging order to protect its reputation and the identities of several employees from close media scrutiny’. That order had been granted without first consulting the press or giving any opportunity to object; but having learnt of it, The Times did object and the university appears to have decided not to oppose the lifting of the order.
The Law Society Gazette reported that High Court dismisses contempt applications against lawyers (23 Feb 2026). This was about a litigant in person who had made a series of allegations against the lawyers ranged against her in long running proceedings involving plumbing and ventilation in her flat. The judge had made an extended civil restraint order (ECRO) after her contempt applications were found to be ‘totally without merit’. The judgment of Mr Justice Cotter in Martina Yvonne Shand v Peter Edward Kemkers & Ors [2026] EWHC 341 (KB) described her allegations as ‘of the most serious character’ against defendants ‘who are all alleged to have been guilty of misconduct and indeed to have conspired together to deceive Ms Shand and the court’. In making the ECRO the judge said ‘I have not reached this decision lightly and well recognise that it will be a real blow for Ms Shand who was very emotional at the prospect’. Interestingly, many of the readers’ comments under the piece were sympathetic to the litigant in person, though perhaps they had not all read the full judgment, which is detailed and scathing. But should the system have allowed her to get as far as a full hearing?
The BBC reported First British baby born using transplanted womb from dead donor (24 Feb 2026). This was a rather heartwarming story about a mother, Grace Bell, had been born without a womb and did not have periods but did have normal ovaries – a condition called MRKH syndrome. To have a baby, her only option was to hope for a womb transplant or go down the route of surrogacy. A womb from a dead donor became available and was transplanted, after which she was able to have IVF treatment and become pregnant. She and her partner Steve Powell, from Kent, paid tribute to the ‘kindness and selflessness’ of the donor and her family for their ‘incredible gift’. The surgeons involved said the birth was ‘a ground-breaking moment’, which could give hope to many more women with a similar diagnosis.
The BBC reported that Man accused of driving wife to suicide claims she lied about abuse, jury told (25 Feb 2026). This was about the ongoing trial of Christopher Trybus on charges of manslaughter, controlling and coercive behaviour and two charges of rape, all of which he denied. At his trial he was effectively accusing his late wife, who was said to have been driven to suicide by his actions, of making false claims and lying to health professionals about the abuse she suffered. The trial was said to be continuing, so we don’t yet know the verdict.
The Times reported that NHS ‘incentivised’ to record baby deaths as stillborn (26 Feb 2026). This had emerged from the interim report of the Independent Investigation into Maternity and Neonatal Services in England chaired by Baroness Amos. Amos had noted that a ‘deeply unfair’ law prevented coroners from investigating stillbirths, which had incentivised the NHS to tell parents their babies had been born dead in circumstances where that might not have been the case, leaving the parents tormented by ‘ambiguity regarding whether their baby had been born alive’. Amos was asked by Health Secretary Wes Streeting to chair the inquiry after a series of NHS maternity scandals. Other failings highlighted in the interim report included poor leadership, racism and discrimination in the treatment of mothers of different ethnicities, and crumbling NHS infrastructure. The Times also featured a case study about one mother, who said ‘I’d gone from the happiest I’ve ever been to the worst possible news’ after her baby died two days after birth.
The BBC reported the imposition of a Life sentence for man who shook girlfriend’s five-month-old baby to death (25 Feb 2026). The baby was said to have suffered catastrophic injuries to his brain, spine and eyes after the assault by the mother’s boyfriend, Thomas Morgan, 29, from Gorseinon, Swansea, in March 2024. He claimed that he had only shaken the baby because he thought the baby was choking, but expert evidence suggested otherwise.
BROADCAST & AUDIO COVERAGE
Page 94, the Private Eye podcast, had an episode entitled A Tale Of Two Andrews (24 Feb 2026), in which they discussed the arrest of (and naming of) the former prince now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor; and, more interestingly for our purposes, the trial of solicitor Andrew Milne for harassment of the court reporter and legal blogger, Daniel Cloake. The Milne case was also covered in the Law Society Gazette, with Solicitor convicted of stalking court observer (11 Feb 2026). Milne was found to have bombarded Cloake with messages containing ‘aggressive threats of litigation and uninvited sexual innuendo’. Milne’s defence suggesting Cloake was actually stalking him was rejected by District Judge Trowell who concluded ‘I am sure Mr Cloake was caused alarm and distress by your course of conduct.’ Sentencing will take place in March. The Eye podcast also covers other complaints about Milne’s behaviour and the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority’s lackadaisical record in dealing with them. This has also been the subject of blogging by Cloake, who writes as Mouse in the Court, e.g. SRA urged to take action as we reveal solicitor has ‘purposely frustrated’ investigation.
RECENT COMMENTARY
Inforrm’s blog published a piece by Subhajit Basu, Is it illegal to make online videos of someone without their consent? The law on covert filming (17 Feb 2026) which was primarily an explainer about privacy and data protection issues around covert filming, rather than the use of such material as evidence. However, it provided a useful overview of the subject, while proposing safeguards that ought to be considered, allowing for exceptions for public interest activities such as journalism or documenting wrongdoing.
The Children’s Legal Centre published an analysis, Hounslow Council unlawfully failed to recognise a child as “looked after” (3 February) of a case where the Legal Centre acted for a boy who had been living in his parents’ council house since he was aged 11, after their respective deaths in 2018 and 2020. A series of neighbours and possible relatives were said to have been caring for him at times. The local authority, Hounslow, maintained that he didn’t have ‘looked after’ status because he wouldn’t have been evicted, but the High Court held that it was not open to a local authority to conclude that a ‘trespasser child’ does not need accommodation because they themselves will not evict them. This was described as ‘circular reasoning’ that reinforced the point that they had decided to provide accommodation, thereby complying with (some of) their s.20 duties.
NEW JUDGMENTS OF INTEREST
Re S (Foster Care or Placement for Adoption) [2026] EWCA Civ 47
This was an appeal by a local authority (LA) against a decision in Reading Family Court to refuse an application for a placement order and instead make a care order on the basis that the child’s needs would best be met by long-term fostering. Permission to appeal had been given because there was some doubt about the position of the child’s current foster carers, who had felt they were not appropriate as adopters. By the time the matter reached the Court of Appeal, it was clear that they were willing and could be approved as long term carers, and the appeal was dismissed. The case is described as finely balanced, on the particular facts, but the judgment is useful in setting out the current case law on the alternatives of adoption and long-term fostering.
Re S (Care and Placement: Schedule of Findings of Fact) [2026] EWCA Civ 85
This is an unusual case, an appeal against some of the findings of fact that had been made in a care case, although the findings in dispute hadn’t affected the outcome of the proceedings for the children, who remained under care and placement orders. These findings had been made against an aunt, whose appeal was partly successful. There had been some confusion about the exact wording of the findings made in the care proceedings and the Court of Appeal recommended that the Public Law Working Party and Family Procedure Rule Committee formalise practice in future cases to include an approved schedule of findings to be attached to a sealed order [paras 51-57]. We think this is a very positive move in transparency, even if the facts in the case itself are specific.
The judgment in this financial remedies case generated some strong criticism from retired judge Sir Nicholas Mostyn, partly because he believes parties in financial cases should normally be named. He complained on Linked-In that the decision to anonymise the parties was ‘completely ridiculous’. We noticed that the rubric to the judgment does say that ‘the anonymity of the parties and members of their family must be strictly preserved’ and that failing to do this ‘will’ be contempt of court, although no reason for the protection of identities is given. Although the judge, Mr Justice Peel, concluded that the husband was not fully disclosing his wealth, this left him to have to speculate on its value, as there didn’t seem to be any mechanism to force the husband to be fully honest. This point was also criticised by Mostyn.
Re Amy (A Child: Welfare Hearing) / London Borough of Ealing v Ella & Amy [2026] EWFC 14
This is a complex case about a young mother and baby in care proceedings where there was a tragic history of the mother having previously given birth to a child (while she was under 18) who died when a few months old, in unexplained circumstances. The LA plan was for the new baby to be cared for by a grandparent under a special guardianship order; the mother argued for the baby to remain with her, under a supervision order. It’s interesting to read the details as outlined by HHJ Willans (sitting in the High Court) of the threshold of harm that were argued by the LA, and his own different analysis. Because his conclusion (a supervision order) was the opposite to the professional recommendations, he set out his reasons for this in detail.
W v The London Borough of Brent & Ors [2025] EWFC 485 (B)
There’s quite a lot about transparency issues in this judgment from HHJ Downey in West London Family Court. The judge identified poor practice by the LA, summarising this as
‘These are significant failings, and those failings coupled with the local authority’s failure to notify the Guardian of their plan to remove, resulted in a child being removed wrongly from his primary carer. H, a 6 year old child was unnecessarily removed from the carer he called “ mum” and placed in stranger foster care for 16 days, which was upsetting and confusing to the child and his aunt.’ [para 51]
The judge decided to publish this judgment because it was:
‘in the public interest to know when a local authority’s actions were found to have been wrongful, and what steps the court took to correct those errors’.
He decided not to name individuals in the LA because the fault was systemic, rather than about individual practitioners. We don’t know why, but the judge cited the old and obsolete guidance on publication of judgments, from 2014 and 2018. The current guidance that replaced this was issued in 2024.
This is another judgment in the line of cases where a placement order is sought and parents ask late in proceedings for an adjournment while potential kinship carers are found and assessed, but the court decides proceedings have been going on too long, and the child should not be subject to further delay. As the judge, HHJ Willans, explained, a further adjournment was not a ‘realistic option’ in the context of the child’s welfare. The child was aged three, and the application had been issued nearly 18 months earlier.
The next two cases contain quite lengthy analysis (mainly in paras 20-38 of East Riding) of the current case law on deprivation of liberty (DoL) of disabled children:
East Riding of Yorkshire Council v The Mother & Ors [2026] EWHC 181 (Fam)
The child was aged 12 and is autistic with ‘demandant-avoidant behaviour’. She was subject to a section 20 agreement with her parents, being accommodated in a care home by the LA. The Cafcass guardian’s view was that the restrictions placed on her there were outside the parents’ ‘zone of responsibility’ i.e. they couldn’t legally consent to them. However, on the facts of the case, Henke J concluded that the parents’ consent was sufficient and that no court oversight of the placement was needed.
Medway Council v The Father & Anor [2026] EWHC 236 (Fam)
The facts in this DoL case before Henke J were different; the LA asked the court for authorisation of the DoL of a 15 year old girl with profound disabilities who lived with her ‘devoted’ father. The LA was providing a range of support services (under s 17 Children Act 1989) for her at home, at school and at a residential home. Henke J concluded that the girl was not being deprived of her liberty because although she was subject to constant supervision, this was within her father’s zone of responsibility. When she was at home, he was making decisions that would be expected in her circumstances; when she was at school or the care home, his consent was sufficient to cover the restrictions. The LA therefore didn’t need the court’s authorisation to provide the services.
OTHER TRANSPARENCY etc NEWS
The UK-based community interest company Blind Justice submitted to the Ministry of Justice a policy research report, Exposing Administrative Barriers Facing Litigants in Person (January 2026). The report presented the findings of its two-year investigation into systemic barriers faced by litigants in person (LiPs) in the civil and employment courts. The central finding was that:
Administrative reliability has become the decisive gatekeeper to justice. Document loss, unacknowledged correspondence, mandatory procedural submissions not placed before decision-makers, and inconsistent procedural advice routinely prevent unrepresented parties from reaching judicial determination. These failures operate upstream of the judiciary and therefore escape traditional safeguards of fairness.
This was borne out by statistics showing that:
Across all 20 cases analysed: • 92% involved missing or unprocessed documents • 85% involved mandatory submissions not placed before decision-makers • 88% involved inaccurate or contradictory procedural advice • 76% involved emails unacknowledged or unlogged • 81% involved conflicting information from different HMCTS teams • 100% reported excessive call-centre delays exceeding 20 cumulative hours.
When court staff lose documents, or don’t forward submissions to judges, don’t acknowledge or log emails, give conflicting information etc, this impacts much more in litigants in person than it does on represented parties. And it erodes confidence in the justice system.
The NCTJ announced it was launching an action plan to strengthen the safety and resilience of journalists across their careers (3 Feb 2026). It said insights from a Journalism and the Courts symposium held at the University of Salford in June 2025 had highlighted ‘gaps in support for reporters covering criminal trials, inquests, and family court proceedings’. The planned resource would help journalists and newsrooms ‘better support wellbeing and resilience when reporting on distressing and complex cases’. This was not so much about reporters getting access to information as managing the stress and trauma of reporting sometimes distressing cases and being subject to threats and intimidation from litigants. A new safety action plan would be administered by the NCTJ’s Safety and Resilience Advisory Panel.
The government announced Children to get swifter justice thanks to renewed Victims’ Code (5 Feb 2026) saying ‘child victims will be better supported to understand their rights as a victim of crime and, more crucially, where to get the help they need to recover under plans for a new and improved Victims’ Code unveiled today’. The intention was to ‘work with young people and experts to develop the first-of-its-kind child-friendly version of the Victims’ Code. This will set out in age-appropriate language a child’s rights as a victim of crime – including the right to be referred or self-refer to support services’. Proposals included more direct contact with police and probation officers alongside parents for those aged 12 and up, ‘granting them the dignity and autonomy they deserve as survivors of crime, and a stronger feeling of safety going through the justice system’.
On 10 February 2026 the Judiciary published an order by the Administrative Court, which was due to hear an appeal by case stated from the Crown Court in the case of DPP v Coskun, permitting members of the public to apply for permission to watch or listen to the Pre-Trial Hearing remotely. Joshua Rozenberg in a post about the case, Blasphemy appeal (10 Feb 2026) commented that ‘there is likely to be media interest in the hearing. But successive governments have been promising for years to allow hearings in the Administrative Court to be broadcast or livestreamed without the need for a formal application’. Whereas, of course, a member of the public can attend any open court hearing in person.
Family Law Week noted that Adoption UK responds to proposals for reforming the adoption support system in England (10 Feb 2026). The charity had responded to the Department for Education’s (DfE) outline proposals for reforming the adoption support system in England, welcoming the confirmation of funding for the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) for the next two years while expressing disappointment that the cuts made to the fund last year had not been reversed. ‘Any review of adoption support must ensure that a new system meets the support of adoptees of all ages as our research shows too many families are in crisis.’
The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory’s Chart of the Month (26 Feb 2026) showed that ‘White and Mixed ethnicity children are more likely to leave proceedings on legal permanence orders’. Beneath the chart it explained that
‘There are differences in the legal orders made in care proceedings according to a child’s ethnicity. White and Mixed ethnicity children are more likely to be placed for adoption than their peers from Black, Asian or Other ethnic groups. A higher proportion of children from Asian, Black and Other ethnic groups are subject to supervision orders or no order than children of other ethnicities. The drivers of this variability remain unclear and require further research.’
The CourtsDesk saga
The Times reported that MoJ orders deletion of UK’s largest court reporting archive (8 Feb 2026) and followed this up three days later with a ‘Thunderer’ oped, Removing this vital resource is a bitter blow to open justice by the same reporter, George Greenwood. Both pieces were about the forced closure of a data analysis company called CourtsDesk which had been set up to collate listings and other data from the magistrates’ courts, to facilitate analysis and reporting by journalists. The project had been approved by the then Lord Chancellor in 2021 to explore how a ‘national digital news feed of listings and registers can improve coverage of the courts by the news media’. The platform had since been used by more than 1,500 journalists from 39 media organisations and the data provided had highlighted serious failures in the courts system. But last November HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) issued the company a cessation notice, citing what it called ‘unauthorised sharing’ of court data, claiming this was a ‘data protection issue.’ Despite that concern, which appears to have stemmed from the sharing of victim data with an AI company, no steps had been taken by HMCTS or the government to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Greenwood says in his oped that ‘the only role the AI specialists had was to help to design an internal tool that would remove unnecessary victim data, reducing the chance of accidental identification’. The pilot had been approved by Chris Philp, the justice minister under the previous government. But despite his plea to his replacement as minister, Sarah Sackman, the government had now issued a final refusal, meaning the archive ‘must now be deleted within days’, according to The Times.
The closure of CourtsDesk was also the subject of a heated debate in the House of Commons, in which Sackman struggled to justify the government’s actions: Hansard, Court Reporting Data, Tuesday 10 February 2026.
There was also coverage of the story on his substack by the company’s founder, Enda Leahy, in a series of posts rebutting the accusations of HCMTS and the minister, concluding with a post announcing the news that the government had finally appeared to have relented: Formal Engagement Resumed. Here’s What It Means (19 Feb 2026). That good or at any rate hopeful news was also reported by Greenwood under the title MoJ halts purge of court archive used to track grooming gangs (19 Feb 2026) saying ‘The government has halted the deletion of a major archive of court reporting records after a Times campaign to save the system.’
Finally…
We have a small favour to ask!
TEN YEARS A CHARITY
The Transparency Project is a registered charity in England and Wales run by volunteers who mostly also have full-time jobs. Although we’ve now been going for over a decade, we’re always working to secure extra funding so that we can keep making family justice clearer for all who use the court and work in it.
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Featured image: photo by Lucy Reed.