Posts
‘How the MoD tried to cover up domestic abuse by a special forces soldier’
This headline appeared in The Observer on 3 May. The sub headline says: A member of the armed forces who terrorised his wife has been allowed unsupervised access to their daughter – in a case that British military authorities tried to keep out of the public eye. The...
Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup: April 2026
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 Law Society Gazette...
Inaccurate press reporting on a family court contact dispute
Between 5 and 7 April, a story was published on three associated local news sites in Dorset with the headline ‘Dorset court rules mother should have no contact with child’. The articles said that a judge in Bournemouth Family Court had made an order relating to a...
Supreme Court confirms the permanence of adoption
The Supreme Court judgment in Re X and Y (Children: Adoption Order: Setting Aside) [2026] UKSC 13 was published on 22 April. We had watched the hearing and we wrote about it in this post on 20 February - Undoing an adoption order: an update. We don't have a lot to add...
Ending or suspending parental responsibility – new laws
You’ll often see this topic described as ‘stripping’ or ‘removing' an abusive father’s parental rights but parental responsibility (PR) can’t often simply be taken away – although where the circumstances justify it, PR can be restricted or effectively suspended....
‘Top family judge’ bows out
The most senior judge in family courts is the President of the Family Division and Court of Protection, inevitably known in the media as 'top family judge'. Shortly after Sir James Munby was appointed President, from April 2014, he began an innovative schedule of...
Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup: March 2026
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...
‘Transparency should help a flawed system to improve’
On 30 March, The Guardian published this editorial: 'The Guardian view on family justice: transparency should help a flawed system to improve. Increased openness is a change for the better. But cuts have made the courts’ work far harder' We have written this letter in...
The Vice Chancellor and the Cake Maker – Part 2
This is an update on the post we wrote on 18 March about family court and defamation proceedings relating to a high profile couple, Professor James Tooley and Ms Cynthia Tooley/Stroud MBE. Two new judgments in Ms Tooley’s defamation case have been published – one...
Does the Open Justice Principle apply in the Court of Protection?
Earlier this week, the Court of Appeal heard an argument that the Open Justice Principle does not apply to the Court of Protection (CoP) and that an 'urban myth' had wrongly grown that any attempt to restrict public access to CoP proceedings was 'a derogation from...