A failed reunification plan

by Julie Doughty | Jul 20, 2025 | Analysis, Cases, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging

A 13 year old boy was refusing to obey High Court orders that he spend time with his mother following his parents’ separation. After three years of failed attempts to persuade him to see her, the court asked the Tipstaff’s office to enforce an order that he be...

‘If I had to live with mum I’d jump out of the window’ – Why two boys ended up living with their dad

by Lucy R | Jun 29, 2025 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Open Reporting

On the day I saw them trot across the court waiting room on the way back from meeting the judge, Jamie and Andrew* were 10 and 14. I didn’t know that at the time, to me they looked smaller, younger. But the visit seemed to have gone well, as best I could tell from...

Child protection and domestic abuse – a legal blogging report from Cardiff Family Court

by Julie Doughty | May 27, 2025 | FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging

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 grandparents. The local authority (LA) had applied for an interim care order (ICO). The good news...

Cross examination of medical experts – exceptional or exceptionally important?

by Lucy R | May 18, 2025 | Cases, Comment, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Open Reporting

What this post is about When medical expert witnesses are instructed in family cases, usually to help work out how an injury to a child was caused, their evidence can sometimes be accepted by all the parties, in which case the expert doesn’t need to attend court to...

Completing care proceedings in less than 26 weeks

by Julie Doughty | Apr 25, 2025 | Cases, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Open Reporting

I went to Cardiff Family Court as a legal blogger in two care cases this week. Reporting on them might give an inkling into how the most recent ‘refocus’ on the Public Law Outline (PLO) 26 weeks time limit is working out in the real world. We wrote about the refocus...

Transparency Orders – but can a parent tell their own story?

by reporting watch team | Apr 10, 2025 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Open Reporting, Transparency News

Since January the transparency order is ‘a thing’, in that courts will usually make one in every case where a reporter attends a hearing. Such orders allow the anonymised reporting of a hearing or a case by the media. But what about the parents? Does it...