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 Sunday Times (£) began the month with a lifestyle piece on Why being your own boss can add to trouble and strife at home (1 March 2026). This reported on a German study suggesting that ‘Self-employed people are more likely to interfere in their partner’s life — and should learn to take a back seat’. Though this sounds a bit ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’ (the slogan of the old German empire, suggesting women should stick to ‘children, cooking and church’ – ie stay at home) it is apparently based on a study of different working patterns by both sexes, showing that ‘having a self-employed partner was associated with a higher frequency of disagreements and quarrels in relationships’. The research was carried out by Dr Stefan Schneck, an economist at the Institute for SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) Research in Bonn, who analysed data from more than 6,000 couples in dual-earner relationships, and published his findings in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics.
The Times reported on Widow in £434,000 court battle with husband’s ex-wife (5 March 2026). This was about a problem with administration of estates rather than divorce as such, but the fact that the deceased husband had divorced his wife and married again provided the context for a problem caused by an administrative error. The widow of the wealthy lawyer was said to be locked in a court battle with the lawyer’s former wife because £434,000 of his estate had been transferred to her by mistake, following sale of his house. Despite being a former partner at Fieldfisher, the lawyer appears to have died intestate. It seems the former wife having received the money had declined to repay it and the widow was now seeking an order to freeze her assets. The judge reserved his judgment.
The Law Society Gazette, under the title Meeting of Minds (8 March 2026), had a book review by Tony Roe of Staying Sane in Family Law, by Annmarie Carvalho (Bath Publishing, £20). Carvalho was a family law solicitor and mediator at Farrer & Co for more than a decade before she retrained as a therapist. The first part of her book delves into the psychology of family law, with individual chapters devoted to different aspects of experience. The second part suggests techniques and ways to cope with pressure. Roe concludes that, ‘as a family lawyer, I recognise that you can meet your clients at their lowest ebb. You see the worst of human nature but, sometimes, also the best. This is a book which I wish I had read years ago. It is long overdue.’
The Irish Times had an opinion piece, X, C, A, B, MZ: I’m thinking of the lonely alphabet of brave, anonymous women and girls (13 March 2026) by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, marking the week between International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day with a meditation on all the unnamed women and girls who had made their way through the courts to protect their rights and the rights of others. She highlighted the case of her client MZ who (with another anonymised applicant, SV) had applied to the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg challenging what they say is a discriminatory distinction between how parental rights can be removed from an abusive father if the parents were unmarried at the time of the child’s birth, but not if they were married. She pointed out a difference in treatment among the jurisdictions of the British Isles, saying MZ and SV could have made their applications to the Scottish courts, but not in England and Wales, or Northern Ireland.
On a similar note the BBC reported My dad stabbed my mum to death – but then I had to move back in with him (16 March 2026) which was about Jade’s law (the removal of parental responsibility from those who kill the parents of their children) and how, although enacted under section 18 of the Victim and Prisoners Act 2024, it still has not been brought into force almost two years later. The UK Ministry of Justice told the BBC it was implementing Jade’s Law ‘as swiftly and safely as possible and it will come into force by the end of 2026’. (However. we’ve now read on Hansard, the date will be April 2027 – we’re going to write on this shortly.)
The Times reported that Judge investigated over X account that ‘targeted female barrister’ (13 March 2026). This was about a circuit judge, HHJ Daniel Sawyer, who was the subject of a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) about his use of an anonymous social media account to conduct a campaign of online harassment against the family barrister Dr Charlotte Proudman. The complaint alleged that in 2022, when Sawyer was still a recorder or part-time judge, he had used his anonymous account on X as Yet Another Tweeting Barrister to criticise Proudman’s views on rape prosecutions, accusing her of knowing ‘nothing’ about the criminal courts and suggesting her commentary could discourage victims from reporting crimes. However the report concludes by saying the complaint was rejected because it was out of time.
On that point, Joshua Rozenberg, Complaining about judges (A Lawyer Writes, 17 March 2026), asked ‘Are time limits being interpreted too strictly?’ Under rule 12 of the Judicial Conduct Rules 2023, ‘a complaint must be made within three months of the matter complained of’. Proudman complained within three months of discovering the identity of the anonymous account, but the JCIO decided to interpret rule 12 as applying to the date of publication. Rozenberg thinks that was unfair. ‘If I could not with reasonable diligence have discovered the identity of the hypothetical anonymous judge within three months, surely the time limit should begin to run from the day I was tipped off?’
The BBC published a long article entitled ‘Like a ‘Like a trap you can’t escape’: The women who regret being mothers (14 March 2026) about what it called ‘a hidden community’ of such women. Reporter Kirstie Brewer spoke to a number who expressed such regret. Her piece appears to have been inspired by a recent film: she said ‘the extreme pressure and sacrifice that motherhood can involve is put under the spotlight in the film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, which is up for an Oscar tomorrow night’. Her report also refers to a book by the sociologist Orna Donath, Regretting Motherhood: A Study.
ITV News reported that ITV News’ findings prompt government ‘crackdown’ on families being cut off from disabled loved ones (17 March 2026) saying the minister Stephen Kinnock had promised to investigate after an earlier TV report had found ‘hundreds of families claiming they have been restricted or banned by care companies and councils from seeing loved ones with learning disabilities, after complaining about the quality of care’. Lawyers and disability charities had told ITV that they were seeing an increasing use of so-called ‘contact restrictions’, while councils struggled to find alternative care for people with learning disabilities whose families had complained. Commenting on LinkedIn, Celia Kitzinger said it ‘raises concerns about transparency orders [from the Court of Protection] restricting families’ freedom of speech’.
The Times reported on Call to protect children in ‘toxic family splits’ (18 March 2026) which was about the recent report from the Family Solutions Group, Putting Children First. This was said to call on lawyers to adopt a less adversarial and more child-focused approach to reduce long-lasting damage to children caused by parental conflict. Its appearance, said the reporter Catherine Baksi, was a ‘timely coincidence’ with the government’s announcement of the rollout of pathfinder / child focused courts (see below).
The BBC reported that Adoption system leaves too many parents isolated, government admits after BBC investigation (18 March 2026) saying Josh MacAlister, the children and families minister for England, had apologised to families who had received support from services that were not good enough, following a BBC investigation last year which had found that ‘hundreds of adoptive parents had struggled to get help for their children or had been blamed for their emotional and behavioural difficulties’. (We reported this in our November 2025 roundup.)
The Guardian reported that Family courts in England and Wales ‘not good enough’ for women and children, minister says (22 March 2026) after Baroness Levitt KC, a government minister had said child-focused courts would provide a ‘major overhaul of the family justice system in England and Wales that will play a central role in “rebalancing” the family courts’. This followed the announcement, reported below, of the national rollout of the pathfinder model, which has now been renamed the Child Focused Model. The article elicits Levitt’s views on a range of issues in the family justice system, including whether it is inherently sexist, on the influence of unqualified ‘experts’ in parental alienation, and on the removal of parental responsibility under the Victims and Courts bill.
The Times reported that Judge denies claim that sheikh’s wife owns home under ‘Islamic custom’ (19 March 2026) which turned out not to be about matrimonial assets but rather about an attempt to avoid losing a house to the husband’s liquidators after his company went bust. The husband and wife tried to argue that, under Islamic customary law, he was obliged to provide her with a home, so this gave her legal ownership of an £8.3 million property in Hampstead Garden Suburb, thereby shielding it from being seized by the liquidators or charged against the outstanding debts of about £80 million. Judge Joanna Valentine seems to have given the argument short shrift, but we can’t find a published judgment to see what she actually said.
The Sunday Times magazine had a piece, My divorce cost me £80,000. So I found a better way for couples (21 March 2026) which was about Kate Daly and her foundation of Amicable, with Pip Wilson, in 2015, which provides a low cost service to draft legally binding consent orders with a view to reducing the high cost and anxiety of hard fought divorce proceedings. The piece recounts the early challenges it faced (including anxious scrutiny from Mr Justice Mostyn as to the legality of Amicable apparently acting for both parties) and her own matrimonial history by way of context. Now she’s written a book about it: Amicable Divorce: Your Practical Guide to Divorce Without the Drama. (That Mostyn J case was JK v MK (E-Negotiation Ltd and another intervening) [2020] EWFC 2.)
Local Gov and Social Care Today (27 March) both reported on a government announcement that the Children Act 1989 will be amended to include siblings of children in care in local authorities’ duties to allow reasonable contact between children in care and their parents. At present, this positive duty, under section 34, does not apply to brothers and sisters, but only parents. The law in Scotland was changed to give siblings this equal status some years ago. The amendment forms part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
The Guardian reported that Court of appeal says it cannot rule on which identical twin fathered a child (30 March 2026). This was about a case where a woman had sex with identical twins within four days of each other and was then unable to ensure one of them should take parental responsibility because it is ‘not possible’ to know which is the father. While DNA testing had revealed that either of the twins could be the father, it cannot distinguish between them so ‘there is a 50% chance of the correct father being already on the birth certificate’. The report links to the relevant judgment, in Re J (Loss of Parental Responsibility) [2026] EWCA Civ 344, in which the President, sitting in the Court of Appeal with Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, dealt with three different cases about the removal of parental responsibility, of which this was the most interesting. But it has not been resolved: further (written) submissions were invited on ‘welfare’ issues.
Legal Futures noted that Barrister self-reports to BSB after citing fake cases in skeleton (30 March 2026) which was about a person, named as Layla Parsons, an unregistered (non practising) barrister who held herself out as a lawyer and had submitted authorities hallucinated by artificial intelligence (AI) to the High Court when making an application putting herself forward as kinship carer that she subsequently withdrew. Although she was acting as a lay advocate to a mother and then a litigant in person in a case about the welfare of four children, Recorder Howard in Bournemouth Family Court decided that he should name her in his ruling, despite her protests and the fact that she had self-reported to the BSB, which he said had been the responsible thing to do, since she had offered to do paid legal work to the public. The judge said:
‘there is a real and not fanciful possibility that Ms Parsons will in the future offer legal services to members of the public. I consider that this factor, and the need for any person engaging the services of Ms Parsons in legal proceedings to know that she has misled the court (albeit unintentionally) and does not in my judgment properly understand what she has done wrong is a strong and overwhelming factor in favour of naming Ms Parsons.’
Somewhat surprisingly for Legal Futures, though it quotes extensively from it, the report does not cite the published judgment Re A, B, C, D (Extension of assessment; Use of AI: hallucinations) [2026] EWFC 71 (B).
BROADCAST & AUDIO COVERAGE
In an episode titled Life and death (5 March 2026), Joshua Rozenberg’s subscription podcast, A Lawyer Talks had a recording of an interview with Victoria Butler-Cole KC about the recent Court of Appeal decision on the care and treatment of a mentally incapacitated adult, Townsend v Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust [2026] EWCA Civ 195. She said its effect was that practical advice issued by the British Medical Association to assist doctors when making decisions in the best interests of incapacitated adults was now wrong. She hoped the ruling might be corrected on further appeal to the Supreme Court.
Another episode of A Lawyer Talks, entitled A president retires (30 March 2026) featured a farewell interview with the President, Sir Andrew McFarlane, on the eve of his retirement after eight years in office. It’s partly reminiscence about his career, his authorship of the practitioner bible (Hershman & McFarlane; Children Law and Practice), and his legacy – mainly the pathfinder / child focused model and the establishment of the multi-layered Family Court; he also answers a speculative question about changing the law on cohabitation, which he thinks very unfair on any children involved; but curiously nothing about the transparency agenda he inherited from his predecessor, the late Sir James Munby, and devoted the first half of his tenure to completing, via his Transparency Implementation Group and its various subcommittees (which is disappointing).
LEGAL BLOGGING
We haven’t reported directly from court attendance this month, although we are following some ongoing hearings. We did write posts about a number of important published judgments: When ‘transparency’ orders create opacity (Matthew James Pringle v Olivia Margaret Nervo [2026] EWCA Civ 266); The VC and the Cake Maker (several judgments including Professor James Tooley v Cynthia Tooley [2025] EWFC 81 (B) ); and Stability and Siblinghood: Balancing primary attachment and biological bonds (about sibling placement and contact: Re T (A Child: Non-agency adoption) [2026] EWHC 391 (Fam) ).
RECENT COMMENTARY
Mental Capacity Law and Policy blog had a post on Assisted dying – immediate and (potential) longer-term lessons from Jersey (2 March 2026) in which Alex Ruck Keene commented on equivalent legislation in various jurisdictions, small and large, within the British Isles, and the different approaches being taken to the legislative process adopted (eg private member’s bill as opposed to government bill, etc). There was also a report a couple of weeks later in The Times about the ill-fated Scottish bill: How assisted dying bill collapsed after fierce lobbying (18 March 2026).
Resonate (the Resolution blog) marked International Women’s Day (8 March 2026) with a blog post by Farhana Shahzady on Wuthering Heights and the quest for Fair Shares, citing Emerald Fennell’s recent film (somewhat loosely based on Emily Brontë’s novel) as ‘a story of how power, property, and patriarchy prevailed over women (and children) in earlier times’ whose release (last month) provided an opportunity to ‘reflect on the hugely influential and compelling findings of the Fair Shares Report’ which she said ‘offers huge insight into the plight of women due to divorce, and the financial consequences as a result of everyday divorce’. The report, from the Nuffield Foundation, had set out to map the financial and property arrangements people made in England and Wales on divorce and evaluate how far it enabled them to reach fair outcomes. We covered the final report on its launch in November 2023, and a number of additional reports were added in 2024 and 2025.
On her Pink Tape blog our chair, Lucy Reed KC, comments on QLRs – what do the published judgments tell us? [Qualified Legal Representatives, introduced in 2022, are appointed by the court to assist someone who is facing allegations of domestic abuse in family court proceedings by conducting the cross-examination on their behalf, thus avoiding either the judge having to descend into the arena to do it, or the potentially retraumatising effect on the alleged victim of being directly questioned by their alleged abuser.] Lucy searched for recently published judgments in cases involving QLRs and found 35 on the National Archives’ Find Case Law site. The analysis provides some indication of where the system is or isn’t working. For example, Lucy found that ‘judicial questioning was MORE FREQUENT than the questioning by QLRs which was supposed to have replaced such a practice’. In some cases, QLRs were not available (there is a shortage) and others where they had been appointed but were unable to attend. There are also problems where they do appear and overstep their role (see, for example, Re A Child born 2017 [2026] EWFC 55 (B) in judgments below). She lists the cases analysed, concluding that they may not provide a complete picture, and her own ‘anecdotal information suggests that the inconsistency in approach to what a QLR can and cannot / should and should not be doing / asked to do is a bigger issue than appears from this sample’. The blog post was cited in evidence given by solicitor Elspeth Thomson, a member of Resolution’s national committee, to the Lords Domestic Abuse Act 2021 committee, as reported in the Law Society Gazette: Legal representative ‘desert’ in domestic abuse cases, peers told (20 March 2026).
Daniel Cloake, who blogs as Mouse in the Court, published “Open Justice is not open sesame”, court of appeal told in court document transparency case (25 March 2026) after attending (as did we) the recent hearing of the appeal in Re Gardner, on a point about whether the Open Justice Principle applied to the Court of Protection (CoP). The appeal was brought by a family member against the decision of Poole J, published as Re AB (Disclosure of Position Statements) [2025] EWCOP 25 (T3), to order that four position statements in the case be sent to an observer, Professor Celia Kitzinger of the Open Justice Court of Protection Project. Since an argument had been made that open justice simply didn’t apply to the CoP, we were concerned about the implications for family courts, given the overlap in the recent history of transparency in both courts. But the appeal focused more on practicalities than constitutional doctrine. We wrote a brief post about the hearing here: Does the Open Justice Principle apply in the Court of Protection? Judgment has been reserved.
NEW JUDGMENTS OF INTEREST
Other than already mentioned.
Re T (Inherent Jurisdiction: Deprivation of Liberty) [2026] EWCA Civ 307
T is a 17 year old boy who has been in local authority care for seven years. He has complex needs and has been assessed as requiring a specialist therapeutic residential placement. He was made subject to a short term DoL order at the beginning of March but when this was due for renewal the judge did not authorised the DoL. There was an urgent appeal to the Court of Appeal. The judgment, by Baker LJ sets out the context of secure accommodation and DoL, so is quite useful reading for anyone who wants to catch up on this. The High Court judge said (1) there is a statutory secure accommodation scheme under s 25 Children Act 1989 so a DoL authorisation wasn’t necessary and (2) he had insufficient evidence that T was a danger to himself and that it seemed his behaviour could be managed without his being restrained as proposed by the LA. Baker LJ explained why the appeal court disagreed. They concluded that T would come to harm if the DoL order wasn’t made, and that the judge had not taken into account that s 25 couldn’t be used because there wasn’t a place available at that time. Interestingly, T had capacity to instruct his lawyers direct and had told them he was happy in the placement.
Re H (Children: Expertise of Witness) [2026] EWCA Civ 249
This case featured a psychological report by Graham Flatman, who had been appointed as a jointly agreed expert in care proceedings. The mother was now appealing against the care order that had been made on the grounds that Mr Flatman had gone beyond his expertise when reporting to the court. In the Court of Appeal, Sit Andrew McFarlane said that Mr Flatman had been subject to a misconduct investigation regarding another case, resulting in his ceasing work as an expert witness in 2024. (This has been reported by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.) Although Mr Flatman had, at the time he was instructed in the Re H case, disclosed he was under investigation, this had not been brought to the attention of the court or the mother. Mr Flatman’s work in Re H was completed in early 2023. There’s a good deal of discussion in the judgment about expert witnesses and their qualifications. The appeal was however unsuccessful because there had been no irregularity in appointing Mr Flatman, nor had he taken on work he was unqualified to do, and in any event there had been no injustice in the case.
The President added some guidance in the final three paragraphs about the correct way of going about challenging a court decision where an expert had in fact overreached their expertise, for example by applying for a new order rather than for permission to appeal.
Re B-A (Placement Order and Contact Order) [2026] EWCA Civ 356
The Court of Appeal upheld a decision by HHJ Lazarus in December 2025 to make a section 26 order for two children to continue to have contact with their father after the local authority was authorised to place the children for adoption. The Adoption and Children Act 2002, s 26 provides that the court can order contact after a placement order and after the child is actually placed for adoption. We think it’s unusual for a s 26 order regarding parents to be made, although published judgments indicate they are sometimes made for sibling contact. The local authority and the Cafcass guardian argued that the prospect of the children retaining this link with their father would narrow the availability of suitable adopters. This judgment by Lord Justice Cobb is recommended reading for anyone involved in cases that might involve contact after a placement order.
Re NG (A Child) (Disclosure of Asylum Documents) (No 1) [2026] EWHC 412 (Fam)
This case is interesting because the judge, David Rees KC, issued an open judgment and a separate closed judgment. The issue was the extent to which a party could refuse to disclose documents from her asylum application in family proceedings. The mother, father and five year old child are all nationals of ‘Country A’. The mother had brought the child to the UK without first informing the father and had successfully claimed asylum on the basis of the persecution by the father’s’ family she and the child would suffer if they were made to return to Country A. The father was applying to court for the child to be returned. The judge concluded that although the father should be able to see certain documents (recorded interviews and decision letters), these would be subject to quite heavy redaction and other restrictions on his access. The Home Office were joined to the hearing and they agreed that the documents were confidential to the asylum process. The closed judgment sets out the reasons for deciding the father should see the relevant documents even though in a limited way.
Re BA (A Child) (DOLS In Hospital) [2026] EWHC 653 (Fam)
Mr Justice McKendrick said in this judgment:
The highly concerning facts which underpin this application led me to conclude a short written judgment was needed. It is intolerable that a highly vulnerable child has been detained in a room without windows, in a busy and noisy accident and emergency ward, for nearly two and half months. The fact the application was heard in private should be not barrier to putting such matters in the public domain. The common law open justice principles are of fundamental importance.
The series of DoL authorisations were to protect a 13 year old girl whose behaviour was potentially very harmful to herself and others but had been diagnosed as having ‘no treatable mental disorder’ and therefore wasn’t subject to a Mental Health Act hospital order. The judge said it was ‘intolerable’ that she was in an A&E ward, while an appropriate placement to keep her safe couldn’t be found. He authorised another DoL order for one month to allow the girl to move to a therapeutic children’s home, and keep her progress under review.
Re A (A Child) (Fact-finding: domestic abuse and alienating behaviour) [2026] EWFC 58 (B)
We’re including this fact finding judgment from Canterbury Family Court because it systematically applies the recent Re Y guidance on ‘parental alienation – the modern approach’. After detailed consideration, the judge did not find any of the cross-allegations of abuse or alienation to be proved.
Prospective Adopters v Lincolnshire County Council & Ors [2026] EWFC 47
This is a case about post-adoption contact. Unusually, the local authority that had placed two older children for adoption have agreed a post-adoption contact framework to plan future contact between them and a younger sibling who is living with the birth mother of the three children. The adoption agency has made a commitment to support this plan. The judge, Ms Justice Harris, said that a court order for contact under s 51A Adoption and Children Act 2002 would be ‘blunt and ineffective’. Instead, she approved the framework, a copy of which is attached to her judgment and order.
Re A Child born 2017 [2026] EWFC 55 (B)
The judge in this application for contact by a father with convictions for violence against the child’s mother said that the father had failed to put forward any positive case about how contact would be in the child’s best interests, nor any positive welfare case. The judge said he ‘struggled to assess the quality, if it can be put like that, of [the father’s] position’. The father also had a number of drug-related convictions and the judge found that he hadn’t tried to address these issues.
The father hadn’t filed a statement in response to the Cafcass report on the child’s welfare. However it seems from the judgment that a qualified legal representative (QLR) went beyond the QLR role to fill in some gaps. The QLR had (in the usual way) been appointed by the court to cross examine the mother, but he cross-examined the guardian on the father’s behalf and made submissions to the court that the Cafcass report should be ignored. This does look like he was advocating for the father, rather than sticking to what a QLR is meant to do – protect a vulnerable parry from being cross examined. Despite these efforts, the judge made an order for only very restricted indirect contact, and he also made a section 91(14) barring order for five years. (See more on QLRs in Recent Commentary above,)
B v C & Anor [2026] EWFC 66 (B)
In contrast to A Child born 2017 above, this case is a sad example of a situation where a parent with genuine intent applied to enforce a child arrangements order for contact but the other parent has refused to engage at all in court proceedings, for five years. The judge (HHJ Stott in Watford Family Court) concluded that it was no longer in the child’s welfare to keep exploring avenues to reinstate her relationship with her father. The child is now aged 15. No new orders were made, although the judge asked the local authority to make a referral for a strategy meeting and a child protection conference, and for the father to be provided with information about the child’s education.
OTHER TRANSPARENCY etc NEWS
The House of Commons Library published a research briefing on Child arrangements: the family court and domestic abuse (England and Wales) at the end of last month (26 Feb 2026) and shortly afterwards the President of the Family Division issued ‘Preparing Court Bundles for Family Proceedings: Guide for Litigants in Person’ (2 March) to accompany the introduction of a new Practice Direction 27A (PD27A) in the Family Procedure Rules. We covered both of these in a post here, New resources for litigants in person (9 March 2026).
The Ministry of Justice announced Government moves to protect children from abusive parents through new Courts and Tribunals Bill (7 March 2026) which was about the repeal of the presumption of parental involvement through the new Courts and Tribunal Bill. The courts would ‘no longer start from an assumption that parental involvement is always in a child’s best interest’, as provided under the Children Act 1989, and would instead adopt ‘an open-minded inquiry into what is in a child’s best interests’. That mean that if parents were a threat to their child’s safety, ‘they should expect to have their involvement restricted, for example through courts ordering supervised contact, involvement limited to written communication, or by ordering that there should be no involvement at all.’ We wrote about the (long expected) repeal of the presumption in a separate post: The repeal of the presumption of involvement of both parents.
The Bridget Lindley Memorial Lecture, given by Lisa Harker this year, was published by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (of which she is the director) on 5 March 2026: NFJO said the lecture, entitled Improving children’s lives: Holding on to what matters during the technology revolution, ‘offers us a chance to reflect on how we think about technology when it comes to the family justice system’. Focusing on ‘how we respond to the development of artificial intelligence’, it asks, ‘what values or principles do we turn to, to guide us as we navigate these immense changes?’
The Youth Justice Board announced its publication of a new Evidence and Insights Pack examining harmful sexual behaviour, misogyny and violence carried out by children (8 March 2026). The pack brings together the latest research, data and practice examples from across England and Wales. The pack also highlights the complex factors that shape harmful sexual behaviour among children, including childhood trauma, exposure to misogynistic attitudes online, peer dynamics, and wider social influences. Importantly, the evidence highlights that preventing harm early is key. School-based programmes that teach healthy relationships and consent, work with boys to challenge harmful gender norms and strengthen bystander skills can shift attitudes and improve children’s willingness to not engage or intervene in situations that could lead to harm.
The Online Procedure Rule Committee published a summary of responses (11 March 2026) to its Core Rules and Pilot Schemes consultation, which closed in January. The responses came from a range of respondents, including the judiciary, practitioners, advice sector organisations and court users. Under the heading of ‘Transparency and open justice’ it notes that ‘Several respondents emphasised the importance of maintaining transparency in online proceedings, including ensuring that public access to hearings and decisions continues to be supported where appropriate and consistent with existing jurisdiction‑specific laws and practices’. We covered the consultation and our response to it in a separate post: Rules for online court hearings – consultation.
The Administrative Justice Council (AJC) published its final report on Digital Reform and the Tribunal User Experience in the Modernised Tribunal Service (10 March 2026). The working group’s report identifies the significant digital infrastructure and operational improvements delivered by the HMCTS Reform programme and highlights areas where challenges remain. It found that advances in online case management and virtual hearings have introduced efficiencies and flexibility, particularly in high-volume jurisdictions. However, users across multiple jurisdictions reported issues around unclear or inconsistent communications, difficulties uploading evidence, and practical obstacles navigating digital systems. The report also observes that remote hearings, now widely used, have provided flexibility but can be undermined by technical issues, limited privacy, and inconsistent support. It makes 11 recommendations focused on improving access, usability, processes and effective use of technology for those working in the system.
The Law Commission provided an email update on its Contempt of Court laws project (13 March 2026), mainly to announce that its Part 2 report, which it had expected to publish by the end of 2026, will now appear, along with a draft Bill, in spring 2027. Its Part One report was published in November last year, and we covered it in a post here An end to secrecy in family courts? (27 Nov 2025).
The Lord Chancellor David Lammy MP announced by way of a ministerial written statement on 17 March 2026 the national rollout of the Child Focused Model, formerly known as the Private Law Pathfinder, in the family courts. ‘The Child Focused Model implements substantial reform to private law children’s proceedings. With the help and close collaboration of hard-working professionals across the family justice system, the model delivers improvements to the court process and to the outcomes experienced by children and parents involved in these cases, including where domestic abuse has been a feature.’ He explained how the model was being rolled out geographically, saying the next areas would be Northumbria and North Durham, Cleveland and South Durham, Lancashire, Cumbria, York and North Yorkshire, Cheshire and Merseyside, Northamptonshire, and Coventry and Warwickshire. These areas would all start the model in Autumn 2026. Plans for roll out beyond these areas will be announced in due course.
The government also published an updated version of Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026: A guide to multi-agency working to help, protect and promote the welfare of children (18 March 2026). The guidance was initially published in 2015. There is a Summary of changes in the new version, in which a number of points have been clarified. There is also an illustrated guide.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
The Financial Remedies Conference takes place on 16 April 2026 at the De Vere Connaught Rooms (near Holborn) in London. Family Law Week promises that ‘leading experts will share insights on the latest legal developments, challenges, updates and best practices shaping the field’. Full details here.
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 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.
We can’t do what we do without help from you!
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Featured image: photo by Lucy Reed