Re W : a most difficult and concerning case of its type

by reporting watch team | Apr 12, 2017 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

Re W is a very long judgment. Re W (A Child) [2017] EWHC 829 (Fam) (06 March 2017) This post is but an outline of it and does not cover the details in full. It is heartbreaking to read, and will have been heartbreaking for W’s parents to hear when delivered last...

‘Gross and obvious irregularity’ by a family court judge – LL v the Lord Chancellor

by Julie Doughty | Apr 12, 2017 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

An unusual case from the Court of Appeal was published on BAILII this week, LL v the Lord Chancellor [2017 EWCA Civ 237, in which a High Court judge was criticised for ‘gross and obvious irregularity’ in dealing with a father in a family hearing and, as a...

Samantha Baldwin – another side to a very sad story

by reporting watch team | Apr 10, 2017 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Notorious

We wrote about this case whilst Samantha Baldwin and her boys were still missing. Here : Police hunt for mother who has abducted her own children – what on earth is going on? At the time, we were hampered by a lack of information and restrictions on reporting some of...

Police hunt for mother who has abducted her own children – what on earth is going on?

by reporting watch team | Apr 3, 2017 | Cases, FCReportingWatch, Notorious

[Update 6 April 2017: The BBC report that Samantha Baldwin and the children have been found safely. There is no further information available at present and we now expect things to go quiet in terms of information coming from the police / Family Court, at least for a...

Unreasonable behaviour, unreasonable judges or unreasonable law?

by reporting watch team | Mar 25, 2017 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Notorious

Actually, the first of those is a misnomer – as we explored in an earlier post the law on divorce in England & Wales requires behaviour (maybe unreasonable, maybe not) on the one part of a spouse that means it is unreasonable to now expect the other to...

‘The truly pitiful plight of a mother caught up in drug addiction’: Publishing judgments from ‘ordinary’ family court decisions

by reporting watch team | Mar 17, 2017 | Cases, FCReportingWatch

Before new guidance from February 2014 (the Transparency Guidance), it was extremely rare for a judgment from a ‘routine’ family court case, outside of the High Court, raising no point of particular legal interest, to be placed in the public domain by being published...