Posts
New research shows domestic abuse issues ‘fall by the wayside’ in making decisions about children
The Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales (DAC) this week published a report, Everyday Business: Addressing domestic abuse and continuing harm through a family court review and reporting mechanism by Mandy Burton and Rosemary Hunter, Loughborough...
Consultation on allocation and gatekeeping in family courts
This topic was recently covered in a consultation issued by judges that updates guidance to courts on what level of judge or magistrate should sit on a case and generally how applications received will be efficiently administered. The guidance says that it applies to...
An order for ‘no contact’ at West London Family Court
Earlier this month, I attended a private law hearing held at West London Family Court before His Honour Judge O’Donovan. The judge made a transparency order at the beginning of the hearing. There are some unusual aspects to this case, including a section 91(14) order...
Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup: August-Sept 2025
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 Financial Times posed the...
Judgment given and published in Welsh
Thanks to Alex Ruck-Keene who noticed last week that BAILII had published a Court of Protection judgment by HHJ Edwards in Cardiff in the Welsh language. It's TIRE (by her Litigation Friend LK) v Carmarthenshire County Council [2024] EWCOP 81 (T2). Alex's comment is...
Updated Guidance: What to do when a reporter attends your hearing
We first published our Guidance Note 'What to do when a reporter attends (or wants to attend) your hearing' in 2023. Later, we updated it to account for the expansion of the Reporting Pilot and introduction of the Financial Remedies Pilot, developing two versions, one...
Will my Family Court judgment be published?
This post was amended on 25 September to add a new link on the Judiciary website. We recently received an enquiry from someone who wanted a court judgment in their case to be published and who didn't know how to go about this. [EDITED 22.09.25 to clarify this post is...
British teenager becomes a ward of court to escape from Somalia
We spotted this dramatic court judgment published last week although, surprisingly, we’ve not seen any media coverage – Re M (Nationality Based Jurisdiction) [2025] EWHC 1821 (Fam). There are a few similarities with the widely publicised case in July of the 14 year...
A happy ending in Cardiff Family Court
During August, I attended a final hearing in a case I’d written about in May, when I’d said: The circumstances in this case may sound all too familiar to some readers. A child aged ten was terrified of his mother’s violent male partner and is now living with his...
Children left with harmful parents because of lack of foster carers
A local authority (LA) applied for care orders for six children in March 2025. At the case management hearing (CMH) I attended in April, and wrote on here: ‘Completing care proceedings in less that 26 weeks’, a strict timetable was set out by the judge to ensure...