Court of Appeal to decide on ‘necessity’ for intermediaries

by Julie Doughty | Mar 23, 2025 | Cases, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging

We wrote last year about a hearing I attended in Cardiff Family Court about the necessity for an intermediary to assist a father in a fact-finding hearing. We were therefore interested to see recently listed an appeal against a decision made by a judge in a different...

Does a reporter have to be in court to read confidential documents?

by reporting watch team | Mar 14, 2025 | Cases, Comment, FCReportingWatch

Dale Vince, described on Wikipedia as ‘a British Green energy industrialist, former New Age traveller’ attracts a good deal of publicity whether it’s his political donations, owning a ‘green’ football team, or taking libel actions against publishers who wrongly...

Re XY Twins – another family court judgment names an individual to warn parents

by Julie Doughty | Feb 17, 2025 | Cases, Comment, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

Last week,  we wrote on a family court judgment about children that had been published on TNA and BAILII naming an individual party, which we said almost never happened. That’s because of the strict privacy and anonymity rules intended to protect children who are...

Judgment published to warn women against sperm donor who has “180 kids”

by Julie Doughty | Feb 12, 2025 | Cases, FCReportingWatch, Notorious

A family court judgment published on BAILII and TNA last month exposed prolonged harassment of the parents of a small child who had been conceived by sperm donation – by a man they’d met on social media who they thought had unselfishly offered to help them...

Identification of judges in Sara Sharif family court history

by reporting watch team | Jan 31, 2025 | Cases, FCReportingWatch, Notorious

Amidst all the concern about the anonymisation of the family court judges in the historical decisions made about placing Sara Sharif with her father, we should not lose sight of the fact that Mr Justice Williams allowed the media extensive access to documents that...

Injuries to a baby: Part 2 – the court’s decisions

by Julie Doughty | Jan 29, 2025 | Analysis, Cases, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Reporting Pilot

This post follows on from the first part of my report on care proceedings in Cardiff Family Court published here. I was uncertain as to exactly what the judge would decide about who had caused Claire’s injuries. There were no Perry Mason moments of discovery and...