Posts
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). [UPDATE 25.10.25:...
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
7 November 2025: CORRECTION AND APOLOGY: We have now learnt that the email address we had been using for the local authority lawyer in this case was not an active inbox and she had not received the emails we'd been sending. We apologise for this misunderstanding....
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...
Sending a mother to prison for contempt of court
This post by Celia Kitzinger on the Open Justice Court of Protection Project site, 'Sentencing in contempt proceedings', is actually a Family Court case. Celia explains why the hearing caught her eye in the lists, how she observed it, and why she has written about it...