Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup

• Correcting, clarifying or commenting on media reports of family court cases

• Explaining or commenting on published Judgments of family court cases

• Highlighting other transparency news

 

MEDIA (MIS)REPORTS OF FAMILY COURT CASES

 

Eastenders at the BBC – We commented on the recent Eastenders episode in which social workers removed children temporarily in response to an allegation (/arranged their removal). Responses suggest something of a chasm between the perceptions of (many) social workers and those of parents, with some interesting twitter conversations triggered. See Eastenders – gritty real life drama or just running down social workers again? by Lucy Reed:

 

‘Linker’ of the Week: 

 

Patrick Butler at the Guardian – Confident, transparent, journalism enabling readers to look deeper or form their own views from primary source material.  See Austerity policy blamed for record numbers of children taken into care and Alison Michalska: ‘In Britain, we don’t seem to really like children’, with links to October ADCS policy paper A Country That Works For All Children, and DfE looked after children statistics:

 

‘Linkless’:

 

The Guardian / Press Association – The Guardian published Boys with ‘narcissistic cult’ mindset removed from mother’s care by the Press Association, without reference or link to Mr Justice Hayden’s judgment, published two days previously.  We have written before to the Press Association and the Guardian on this issue and wrote about it here. The Press Association (then) said we will endeavour to supply the URL for any publicly available judgment we report at the end of each article. We cannot guarantee to do so in every case, as the information might not be available or might change:

 

The Express – Ran the story, High Court judge tells divorcing couple “money cant buy happiness” on the published judgment of Peter Jackson LJ in S v S (Relocation) [2017] EWHC 2345 (Fam) without a link to the judgment or even mention of where it could be found.  We tried to let readers know where they could read the judgment via the Express comments section but our comment was not moderated through (despite ensuring we didn’t use a link, which many publications reject). We managed to grab a screenshot though:

 

 

Transparency Positives: 

 

The Times – Confusing legal lingo puts DIY divorces on the rocks by Frances Gibb provoked twitter praise here:

 

The BBC for Eastenders – Depending on your point of view of course (see earlier):

 

NEWLY PUBLISHED CASES FOR EXPLANATION OR COMMENT

 

Re Nichol; Nichol v Nichol [2017] QSC 220  – We commented (unusually) on this Australian decision in light of law commission proposals currently under consultation in England and Wales. See Re Nichol: an unsent text message as a valid will by Barbara Rich:

 

R (on the application of NMA) v PRP [2017] EWHC 2527 (Admin) –  We wrote about this Queen’s Bench Divisional Court decision in Why the News Media Association lost it’s claim for judicial review of the Press Recognition Panel decision to recognise Impress by Paul Magrath:

 

IN OTHER TRANSPARENCY NEWS

 

But What About the Children? Hearing the Voice of Children and Young People in court proceeding  – Sarah Phillimore followed up her extraordinary tweetathon from the NAGALRO Conference last week with a summary in this blog post:

 

 

Fair, accurate and balanced – while being stopped from reporting the facts?  – Louise Tickle discussed the impact of reporting restrictions on the responsible reporting of allegations of poor social work practice (in the wake of the family justice sector’s reaction to the ‘Muslim foster care’ story in the Times):

 

Understanding the Court of Protection – Paul Magrath wrote in in Lawyer2B about a recent study of the Court of Protection from Cardiff University and commented on the experience of the Transparency Project:

 

Family Justice Council 11th Annual Debate – The Family Justice Council’s 11^th Annual Debate and panel discussion topic on 21st November 2017 was announced: ‘The court’s role in sanctioning medical treatment and the withdrawal of medical treatment of children‘.  The motion reads:“Parental autonomy and a child’s best interests: Should the courts have the final say?”

 

Family Law Awards 2017 – If you do want to vote for the Transparency Project / @seethrujustice as legal commentator of the year, (or cast your vote otherwise), you have until midday on Friday 20th October here:

 

Feature pic: Courtesy of Flickr Lauri Heikkinenon via Creative Commons licence – with thanks