Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup

by | Aug 5, 2024 | FCReportingWatch, Transparency News | 0 comments

Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup

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 MATTERS

Sanchia Berg, senior reporter with the BBC, reported on an extraordinary High Court hearing she had attended in May, after the judgment was published in late July – ‘Family court judge rules on twins’ existence’ (1 August 2024). A man who was alleging he was the father of twins who had been born in 2021 was applying to court to be able to see them, but his ex-wife was denying that she had been pregnant or given birth at all. The judge, Mrs Justice Arbuthnot, had to first establish whether there were in fact any children who could be subject to an application. She was concerned by the difficulties of determining facts in a case where one or other of the parties was consistently lying, without lawyers representing either of them, saying “the Family Court cannot act as an investigator”. She did eventually find strong evidence that there had been a pregnancy and some evidence that at least one child was born but insufficient to say there were two. The case was still at the fact-finding stage and the father’s application continues. The judgment is AA v ZZ [2024] EWHC 2008 (Fam). It was also reported on by Callum Parke in the Standard (1 August 2024), who noted that the judge had said she felt she had stumbled into an alternative reality.

The Guardian (26 July 2024) reported that ‘Woman loses appeal over child’s birth certiifcate after ex-wife had sex with donor’. This was a clear report about quite a complex case – P v Q & F (Child: Legal parentage) [2024] EWCA Civ 878 – where the second female parent in a formerly married female couple had her name on their child’s certificate replaced by the male sperm donor (as the father) after it came to light that he and the first female parent had had sexual intercourse. Peter Jackon LJ observed that informal conception arrangements always come with an element of risk. Although only one of the women and the man were now shown as legal parents on the certificate, all three have shared parental responsibility following orders made at an earlier court hearing.

The BBC (2 July 2024) and other outlets covered the conviction of Lucy Letby, following her retrial on one count of attempted murder, having already been convicted last year of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder another six at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neo-natal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. Sentencing remarks were published on the Judiciary website. The Court of Appeal, which had earlier dismissed an application for permission to appeal, then lifted some of the reporting restrictions relating to her case, prompting publication of further reporting and commentary on the trial, including

The Times (£) Lucy Letby found guilty of trying to kill premature baby girl

BBC: Lucy Letby: Courtroom drama, a failed appeal, and battles over the truth

BBC: Lucy Letby sentenced to 15th whole life term

Joshua Rozenberg: Why Letby lost

PA Media: Fact check: New Yorker article about Lucy Letby is not available in the UK for legal reasons

The Conversation: Why the New Yorker blocked UK website readers from its Lucy Letby story – an expert explains

The Guardian: Lucy Letby: killer or coincidence? Why some experts question the evidence

David Allen Green: The Lucy Letby case: some thoughts and observations: what should happen when a defence does not put in their own expert evidence (for good reason or bad)?

The Times (£) reported Woman arrested after baby’s body found in bin (12 July 2024)  adding that ‘A man has also been arrested on suspicion of murder after the discovery outside a building owned by the University of London’. The report explained that the mother, aged 29, was arrested on suspicion of child destruction contrary to Section 1 of the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929. A man aged 26 was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder, child neglect and concealment of a birth. The case recalls last month’s coverage of the abandonment of Baby Elsa, after reporting restrictions were lifted, though the outcome is more tragic.

The Observer had an editorial, The Observer view on violence against women after Bushey murders: rampant misogyny must be tackled (14 July 2024) commenting on a recent case in which a mother and two daughters had been killed by a man with a crossbow, who was later apprehended after a manhunt and arrested while in hospital apparently with self inflicted injuries. The fault, says the editorial, lies in ‘a culture that, bluntly, regards women’s lives as expendable in the face of male rage’ and ‘a rampant misogyny that appears to be instilled throughout our institutions, workplaces and relationships – and in the way that boys are brought up and men are formed.’

The Guardian reported that Journalists win court fight to publish UK sex offender’s name (17 July 2024), after the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and freelance journalist Suzanne Martin successfully applied to the court for permission to name a father who wanted to have unsupervised contact with his child. There were findings that Kristoffer Paul Arthur White, who had been convicted and jailed in 2011 for raping a teenager, had raped his ex-partner three times during their relationship after he made an application to the court in 2021 to spend more time with his child. The judgment of Judge Moradifar granting permission to name White was published: Summers & Anor v White & ors [2024] EWFC 182

The King’s Speech was covered by various news outlets and commentators (17 July 2024). “This will be a government of service”, said the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer KC, introducing his government’s first legislative menu, “committed to uniting the country in our shared mission of national renewal.” The speech itself, though given by the King, is designed to set out the programme of legislation that the government intends to carry out during the forthcoming Parliamentary session. It contained an impressive list of bills, though not much in the way of family law. A full can be found in the Briefing Notes. They include:

  • Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill, that ‘gives victims the justice system they deserve and ensure victims of crime and anti social behaviour get the support they deserve’ and will include provisions to ‘protect the public from sex offenders, restricting parental responsibility for child sex offenders and implementing restrictions on sex offenders changing their names’ and ‘will deliver on our manifesto commitment to fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court’.
  • Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which ‘will ensure our education and social care systems transform life chances for millions of children and young people in England’ and will include provisions ‘keeping children safe, happy and rooted in their communities and schools by strengthening multi-agency child protection and safeguarding arrangements’.

The Russell Sandberg blog (17 July 2024) identified the Children’s Wellbeing Bill as the ‘most noteworthy’ in relation to education, but pointed out that there remained outstanding issues relating to marriage and cohabitation in the context of protecting women’s rights, unless they were intended to be covered in the Crime and Policing Bill which pledged strong action to tackle violence against women and girls. He explained his concerns regarding lack of progress on marriage reform in a further post on 19 July: Two Years since the Law Commission’s Weddings Report.

The BBC reported on Arrests made after ‘night of chaos’ in Leeds (19 July 2024), concerning a riotous disturbance in which a police car was overturned and a bus set fire to, apparently sparked off by local objections to the removal by social workers, with police assistance, of children from a Roma family in the Harehills suburb of Leeds. The Guardian reported that Council to review child protection case that triggered Leeds unrest. It said 14 organisations, including the Roma Support Group, the Romani and Traveller Social Work Association and the European Roma Rights Centre had called for better engagement with children’s services ‘to address the barriers and disadvantages Roma people experience during child protection cases’.

A follow up story from The Guardian said Roma children at centre of Leeds unrest returned to extended family (23 July 2024). This covered the subsequent family court proceedings and explained that the four children had initially been removed from a house in Harehills to prevent them being taken abroad. Judge Helen Trotter-Jackson ruled that the children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, could be looked after by extended family 20 minutes’ walk away from their parents. The judge warned against ‘unhelpful’ threats of further unrest against a background of social media misinformation and agitators, saying the welfare of the children came first. The current Reporting Pilot in Leeds makes properly informed reporting of newsworthy cases like this one much more likely than in courts where standard restrictions still apply.

There was lots of other coverage on the Leeds case, demonstrating how it sits on the nexus of family justice, immigration, social media regulation (lack of), and public (dis)order:

The Law Society Gazette reported that Judge laments ‘unconscionable’ 131-week wait to end care case (19 July 2024). The case in question had been dealt with by nine judges across 17 hearings and passed through the hands of 33 different advocates before it was resolved this month. Mr Justice McDonald  said the case had demonstrated ‘nearly every type of poor practice’ that family procedure rules and practice directions were intended to eradicate, and even referred to ‘unconscionable delay’ in the judgment name: London Borough of Enfield v E (Unconscionable Delay) [2024] EWFC 183. There is a good summary of the case in Local Government Lawyer (22 July 2024).

The BBC reported on Woman reunited with son after half a century (21 July 2024). A rare good news story, marred only by antiquated terminology such as saying the woman ‘fell pregnant’, recounts, after the unhappiness of their forced separation, the joyous reunion, thanks to the ITV programme, Long Lost Family, of a mother who last saw her baby in 1967 and the grown up man he has since become.

Lancashire News reported on A thriving Blackpool toddler taken from loving foster parents by his biological dad. It ended in murder (21 July 2024). This is a grim story about a small boy (Damion Russell) initially taken into care and placed with foster parents, but then returned to his father’s care following an assessment. But subsequently the father (Daniel Hardcastle) inflicted injuries as a result of which Damion later died in hospital. Following a trial at Preston Crown Court, Hardcastle was convicted of murder.

The BBC reported that Clapham chemical attacker took his own life – inquest (23 July 2024), which referred to an incident in London on 31 January 2024 in which a man, later named as Abdul Ezedi, had thrown acid at a woman with whom he had been in a relationship and two children, following which he had gone on the run. CCTV footage showed him subsequently jumping off Chelsea Bridge into the Thames, and a body found later was identified as his. Azedi was an asylum seeker who came from Afghanistan in 2016, and was twice denied asylum before an immigration tribunal ruled that he should be allowed to stay in the UK after he claimed to have converted to Christianity. He was convicted of two sexual offences in 2018. There is fuller reporting in the Times (£) both at the time: The screaming was so intense’: Clapham attack witness tells of aftermath and after the inquest finding: Clapham chemical attack suspect Abdul Ezedi killed himself, coroner rules.

BROADCAST & AUDIO COVERAGE

The Private Eye podcast, Page 94 (episode 118) takes advantage of the lifting of reporting restrictions on the Lucy Letby case (see under News above) to raise questions about, amongst other things, the expert and statistical evidence relied upon by the prosecution, and the lack of expert evidence adduced by the defence. Medical columnist Dr Phil Hammond (aka MD) questioned whether the jury could, on the statistical evidence, really have been sure “beyond reasonable doubt” of the nurse’s guilt for the deaths of a small number of already very sick and frail babies. His ‘MD’ column in the print Issue 1628, has also now been published. Some criminal law specialists were critical of Dr Hammond’s understanding of the criminal trial process. Commentary by both legal and medical professionals about the trial process and a potential miscarriage of justice continues to evolve.

LEGAL BLOGGING

In Legal blogging from the magistrates – ‘live with’ and ‘spend time with’ orders (4 July 2024) Julie Doughty continues the story from Lucy Reed’s earlier post, My first daytrip to the Magistrates Court (5 May 2024) covering a case before magistrates in one of the original Reporting Pilot courts, at Cardiff. She points out that ‘This is our first successful legal blogging from a hearing before magistrates in the family court – which the mainstream media appear to be ignoring.’ Lucy adds that ‘Everyone at Cardiff Family Court have been helpful in facilitating this, in contrast to a different experience we had at a magistrates hearing elsewhere, that we will be writing about soon’. (See next item.)

Frustrated: our attempts to report on family court hearing before Magistrates – a system in overload (1 August 2024) is an update on our attempts to report a case before magistrates in one of the other courts where the pilot does not yet extend to magistrates, but where attendance by legal bloggers (and accredited media) is still possible under existing rules. Here, the magistrates refused to allow our legal blogger into the court, for reasons and by a procedure which we consider to have been wrong. We applied to a judge for permission to report the case and to obtain a transcript of the preliminary hearing in which, in the absence of the parties, the magistrates decided of their own motion to refuse permission for a blogger to attend. Even once we had obtained the judge’s order, the process of actually getting a transcript appears to be frustratingly broken. We still have no transcript and so cannot yet tell you in detail about what the magistrates said as to why they were excluding our blogger Paul. Watch this space.

We also wrote (27 July) about an unusual judgment by HHJ Lynn Roberts at Central London Family Court, where she had made a post-adoption contact order to the birth father of a three-year-old child who was being adopted by her foster carers. We commented on how rare it was for such an order to be made, although the judgment itself largely consists of criticism of the local authority who held a placement order (revoked by the judge). The only other example we can think of where a published judgment shows a post-adoption contact order being made under s51A Adoption and Children Act 2002 is BT v GT 2018, but the circumstances there were very different – and the order was for contact between one adopted twin and the other, rather than for one requiring adopters to facilitate contact between an adopted child and their biological parent.

NEW JUDGMENTS OF INTEREST

Other than those featured in News above –

Re TD (Children: Specific Issue Order) [2024] EWCA Civ 793

The Court of Appeal heard an appeal against on order made by HHJ Tolson in Reading Family Court that had awarded what was described as ‘over riding parental responsibility’ to the children’s father. This was via a specific issue order that the father’s view would take priority in any future disagreements with the mother about schools, therapy, or interaction with professionals. Peter Jackson LJ said that the order was unnecessary and disproportionate and was unlikely to work anyway. However, this was just one aspect of the judgment which otherwise was approved by the Court of Appeal, including a child arrangements order supported by a 12 month supervision order to the local authority (which had earlier argued for the children to be moved to the father).

Re W & others (Implementation of adoption plan pending appeal) [2024] EWCA Civ 837

This was an appeal against care and placement orders made by Deputy Circuit Judge Wallwork in Manchester Family Court. Lord Justice Baker explains at the outset that the purpose of the judgment is to say what the local authority did wrong and how such errors can be avoided in future. Basically, it appears that the local authority had moved too quickly when it knew (or should have known) applications for permission to appeal were in progress. The correct procedure is set in some detail in the final paragraph of the judgment.

Re A (A Child: Appeal: Case Management Decision: Identity of Expert) [2024] EWHC 1669 Fam

The interest in this case arises from Ms Justice Henke’s decision to vary a case management direction (in private law proceedings) that had appointed a male psychologist to undertake a global psychological assessment of a 12-year-old boy and his parents. The High Court judge agreed with the mother’s argument that, because of her particular history as a victim of serial male sexual abuse, her full participation in assessment and giving best evidence required the appointment of a female psychologist.

Re CB [2024] EWHC 1779 Fam

This case is about a mother of a 10-month-old baby who she had asked to be placed for adoption without any of her family being notified of the birth. The circumstances as set out by the mother are extraordinary – she said she had arranged artificial insemination at a clinic with a view to giving a child to a childless couple who then told her they’d decided against having children. The mother was married with two children and had no intention of bringing up a third child. The judge (HHJ Hayes) was critical of the local authority’s delay in applying for a declaration that they did not need to notify members of the mother’s family about the intended adoption, and he made that declaration. The baby had spent all her life in foster care – the judgment doesn’t say if this was a foster-to-adopt placement but that would seem appropriate. Despite the odd facts in the case, the judgment is helpful in setting out the correct approach to the law regarding concealed pregnancy and relinquished babies.    

A v K (Appeal: Fact finding: PD 12J) [2024] EWHC 1981 (fam

There were two issues for Mr Justice Cobb to consider in this appeal from Central London Family Court. First, whether the judge had been right to refuse to hold a fact-finding hearing in a section 8 dispute and second whether the judge should have made a joint ‘lives with’ order (i.e. the child is resident with both parents although this does not need to be on a strictly 50/50 basis). In this case the Family Court judge had made a shared order, rather than ‘lives with’ to the mother and ‘spend time with’ to the father, where the eight-year-old child was spending four nights in a fortnight with her father, so largely residing with her mother. This was to gradually increase to six nights with the father. The judge had relied on the recent case of AZ v BX when considering the joint order and this was approved by Cobb J. The decision that fact finding hearing had been unnecessary was also upheld, as the judge had followed case law and PD12J correctly.

N v J [2024] EWFC 184

This is an important judgment about the extent to which ‘conduct’ (e.g. abusive behaviour by one party toward the other) should be taken into account in financial remedy proceedings on divorce or dissolution. In the old days, we were all taught that conduct had to be ‘obvious and gross’ to make any difference to sorting out finances on divorce. However, this extreme has been questioned in more recent cases, reflecting increased awareness of the serious nature of domestic abuse. In this judgment, Peel J clearly states that domestic abuse in itself is ‘vile and indefensible’. The question for him was whether it was a factor to be considered in this financial dispute where great wealth was at stake. He concluded that there is still a high bar imposed on conduct influencing a fair financial outcome. We will be publishihg a full analysis of this judgment and its implications shortly.   

Re D and E (Children: Assessment and management of risk) [2024] EWFC 162

This is a long and painstaking private law judgment which, interestingly, the judge (Henke J) said she hadn’t intended to publish unless anyone asked her to, but the mother did. This was despite the fact that the judge observed the mother to have been traumatised by the father’s behaviour over many years, adding that she did not use that term lightly but that the mother was worn down and had shown real, visceral and palpable distress in her evidence. The court found that the mother and both children were victims of the father’s abuse and made a section 91(14) barring order for two years. Another interesting aspect is that the court had appointed a QLR (a much criticised scheme) to cross examine the mother and professional witnesses on behalf of the father (acting in person) and the judge makes a point of thanking her for her care and sensitivity.

Re E (A Child: Care and placement orders) [2024] EWFC 170B

While this case (decisions on care and placement for adoption) may appear to be relatively straightforward, the publication of this child-focused judgment by HHJ Case at Slough Family Court makes a very good case study in setting out the evidence and the options open to the court in plain language and even partly in tabular form. There’s also a very helpful linked index at the head of the judgment.

OTHER TRANSPARENCY etc NEWS

The President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, issued Practice Guidance on the Publication of Judgments on 19 June 2024, although it was only published via the Judiciary website on 5 July (after the election). We covered it on this blog in More Family Court judgments to be published online.

The Transparency Reporting Pilot launched last year by the President of the Family Division’s Transparency Implementation Group (TIG) was further extended on 15 July 2024, this time to include private law disputes in the 16 courts that were added to the pilot in January 2024. Previously the pilot in the cohort of new courts only covered public law cases involving children. A separate pilot in some courts deals with financial disputes. Both public and private law cases can now be reported on in the following courts:

London: Central Family Court, East London, West London
Midlands: Nottingham, Stoke, Derby, Birmingham
North East: West Yorkshire, Kingston-upon-Hull
North West: Liverpool, Manchester, Carlisle
South East: Luton, Guildford, Milton Keynes
South West: Dorset, Truro
Wales: Cardiff

We expect that the pilot in the 16 new courts will be extended again in the autumn to cover magistrates, and at some point next year to cover all courts as confirmed in the recent President’s View. The July ‘View’ is another document on our list to write about.

Guidance and training materials on the Reporting Pilot can be found on the TIG information page.

Press Gazette: Update: Family court reporting pilot widens to include private family disputes

[Edited 13.08.24: the link to this report has disappeared from the TIG page. We don’t know why. We have therefore uploaded a copy of the report here.] An evaluation of the Family Court Reporting Pilot (July 2024) was published by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen). The report is focused on the initial pilot in 2023, which covered public law children cases in three court centres and was later extended to include private law children cases and eventually magistrates’ hearings over the course of the year. The report found that the pilot “enjoyed strong support amongst court staff, legal professionals and media stakeholders. A minority of court staff and legal professionals expressed concerns about the impact of greater transparency in family courts. However, even amongst more skeptical [sic] participants, the ability to report on the functioning of family courts was viewed as an inevitability, due to the demand for greater transparency and accountability from the public and the media.” The report identifies some of the obstacles which still hinder reporting from the family courts, including the uninformative listing of cases, the burden of drafting and providing a Transparency Order in a case if and when a reporter wishes to cover it, and the need for more training of staff to prepare them for the presence of reporters. Against that, “The presence of a dedicated member of staff with responsibility for the Reporting Pilot was highly valued by all participants”. However, once the pilot ends, that dedicated member of staff will have other things to do, so it isn’t something that can be relied on in the long term.

McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists (27th ed) edited by Siân Harrison and Gill Phillips, was launched at Doughty Street Chambers on 9 July 2024 with speeches highlighting the importance of a free press and open justice. As well as hearing from the editors of the current edition of the journalists’ legal bible, there were speeches from Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC and Mr Justice Nicklin. The launch was co-hosted by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

The Transparency and Open Justice Board, launched by the Lady Chief Justice and chaired by Mr Justice Nicklin, announced on 9 July 2024 a call for interest for membership of a Stakeholder Committee, seeking the views of a broad range of potential members to help the board formulate its key objectives and provide feedback on the implementation of any changes to rules and practice. (An initial meeting of many of those expressing such an interest was later held on 31 July.)

A joint open letter (11 July 2024) was sent to the UK Prime Minister from the UK Open Government network and a number of other civil society organisations and individuals, calling on Sir Keir Starmer KC MP to support the aims of the international 75-country Open Government Partnership founded in 2011. It urges him and his government to “embrace technology and improve transparency, accountability, integrity and participation”, and to continue the practice of civil servants and civil society working together, “which we believe could be expanded to support the delivery of mission-driven government”. A short version of the letter was published in The Observer.

The Law Commission on 9 July 2024 launched a Consultation paper on provisional proposals for reform of the law of contempt in England and Wales, aiming to produce a law of contempt that is easier to understand, fairer, and that better protects the administration of justice. Broadly, the proposals are:

(1) To clarify and codify the law of contempt, by doing away with the centuries-old distinctions between “criminal contempt” and “civil contempt” in favour of a framework for liability with three distinct forms of contempt: general contempt; contempt by breach of order or undertaking; and contempt by publication when proceedings are active.

(2) To enhance transparency and accountability by, for example, requiring the publication of judgments in contempt cases where the court imposes imprisonment (something currently mandated by practice direction, but not consistently followed) and data relating to the Attorney General’s contempt function.

(3) To achieve greater consistency and ensure fairness for defendants, and to expand the sanctions the court may impose to include community sentences in addition to a fine or imprisonment.

(4) To improve some of the fundamental protections provided by the rule of law, such as extending the law of contempt to tribunals.

The public consultation period will run for four months, closing on 8 November 2024. A final report, taking responses into account, will be published in late 2025.

Counsel magazine (10 July 2024) had an article, No QLR? A case for improvement, in which Yaa Dankwa Ampadu-Sackey of 4 Brick Court chamberss discussed the shortage of Qualified Legal Representatives (see Re D and E, above) , recalled her experience as a practitioner, and made some suggestions for improvement in the current arrangements.

The ICLR Blog reported on Changes to Neutral Citations for Family Court and Court of Protection. The National Archives (TNA), as the official publishers and distributors of senior court judgments in England and Wales, have been reissuing judgments from the Family Court and the Court of Protection with an updated version of the neutral citation reflecting the status of the judge giving the judgment. The new Family Court citations add a (B) after the case number for any decision not made by a High Court judge. The new Court of Protection citations add (T1), (T2) or (T3) after the case number according to whether the judge is a district, circuit or High Court judge. (The T stands for Tier.)

Online Procedure Rule Committee launches sub-committee. The Online Procedure Rule Committee, which was established last year, has now selected a sub-committee of experts from across the civil, family and tribunals justice sector and members of the judiciary, following a call of expressions of interest issued last November.

The Open Justice Court of Protection blog posted that Transparency requires free and timely public access to skeleton arguments in the Court of Appeal, complaining of the absurd situation in which court observers wanting to understand a public hearing by reading the parties’ skeleton arguments can sometimes be lucky enough to be given them, but sometimes have to make a formal application to the court, at a fee of over £600. Celia Kitzinger, who wrote the post, was given the skeletons free by a friendly judge, but other observers were told “If you wish to apply for a copy of the skeleton arguments from the court file, you are required to make a formal application for permission, pursuant to CPR 5.4C (2) and PD 5A, paragraph 4.3, on an application notice (form N244) with the court fee of £626 or a fee remission certificate.” Clearly something for the Transparency and Open Justice Board (see above) to apply itself to!

The Guardian (11 July 2024) reported that Colin Pitchfork parole hearing will not be held in public after ‘fresh allegations’. Public access has been provided for a small number of parole board hearings since the process was made more transparent some years ago. Colin Pitchfork was the first man to be convicted in the UK using DNA profiling, and was jailed for life in 1988 for the offences of raping and murdering two teenagers. Having initially said that his parole hearing would be publicly accessible, the board announced that it would no longer be held in public due to “unforeseeable developments including fresh allegations”.

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) (July 2024) published a further report, on Data in the Family justice system: what is available and to whom. We’ll be looking at this in a future blog post.

The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (25 July 2024) published  Making an impact: Our first five years in review Over the last five years, it says, it has worked towards five goals for a better family justice system, turning research, collaboration and new ideas into better experiences for families and children. ‘Our new impact report tells the story of this five year journey, and what we have managed to achieve, together with families and professionals from across the system. We are indebted to everyone who has reflected on their experiences and entrusted us with their personal stories – and to our research partners and others who, like us, are committed to making positive change.’

Family Law Bar Association (FLBA) sent out a Note to Practitioners on the Suspected Inflicted Head Injury Service Pilot (31 July 2024). It aims to reduce the need for unnecessary expert reports in care proceedings and all the delay associated with that by having one composite report at the start with the input of clinicians from a range of backgrounds. The concern is that in practice it will make it harder for parents to challenge medical evidence and may increase the risk of confirmation bias. (We shall have more to say about this in due course.).

FAMILY LAW etc IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS

The Philippines

The Times (£) had a piece entitled ‘It’s like prison’: my husband beat me but marriage is for life here (14 July 2024), explaining that, thanks to its extreme Catholic views, The Philippines is one of only two countries (the other is The Vatican) where divorce is illegal, and on efforts being made to bring forward legislation to address the issue. Currently the only option for ending a marriage in the Philippines is annulment, but the process is expensive, protracted and the conditions are difficult to prove. The proposed new law would be subject to conditions such as five years of separation, sexual abuse or physical violence, and “irreconcilable marital differences … despite earnest efforts at reconciliation”. But not adultery.

Canada

The Times (£) reported that the Alice Munro’s books were adored while her deception hid in plain sight, concerning reports that the renowned author, who died earlier this year, had concealed and tolerated sexual abuse of her own daughter by a stepfather. The daughter has now gone public, with revelations initially appearing in the Toronto Star (£) which has continued to cover the story, including a court hearing.

United States

The Free Press (6 July 2024) published A Wife’s Revenge from Beyond the Grave by Francesca Block, an eye-boggling story about the aftermath of the tempestuous marriage and divorce of a couple of New York City litigators (ie trial lawyers) Allan Kassenoff and Catherine Youssef, who married in 2006. Block writes: ‘Allan finally filed for divorce in May 2019, triggering a brutal custody battle that remains infamous in the courts of New York. It was still ongoing when, just over a year ago, Allan received a horrifying email—Catherine had traveled to Switzerland where she would die by assisted suicide.’ But that was just the start because in the suicide note, emailed to all her friends, detailing her ex-husband’s many failings, she had embedded a Dropbox link that included hundreds of court documents, police reports, her children’s therapy records, and videos of her husband yelling—evidence that showed, she wrote, “exactly how abusive Allan Kassenoff is”.’

 

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.

Seen something to go in the next Roundup or that you’d like us to write about? Send it to info@transparencyproject.org.uk

But finally…

We have a small favour to ask!

The Transparency Project is a registered charity in England and Wales run by volunteers who mostly also have full-time jobs. We’re working to secure extra funding so that we can keep making family justice clearer for all who use the court and work in it. We’d be really grateful if you were able to help us by making a small one-off (or regular!) donation through our Just Giving page.

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