Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup

by | Jan 3, 2025 | Cases, Comment, 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, TRANSPARENCY etc

The Observer view: Ignore the stigma and tackle the toxic cycle of child sexual abuse (30 November 2024) followed the publication (which we covered in last month’s roundup) of the report by the national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, “I wanted them all to notice”. The editorial calls for a ‘a paradigm shift in the way children’s services recognise and respond to’ the ‘devastating systemic failings’ which it says ‘are more a product of societal culture than resourcing’. It points out that child sexual abuse is far more common than people realise, and that ‘social workers, teachers, doctors and other professionals become too slow to respond to verbal disclosures of sexual abuse and too wary of recognising other signs in the common cases where children do not feel able to speak up’. Until it’s too late. Society, it says, is ‘stuck in a toxic cycle: reacting with outrage every time a new scandal breaks, whether in religious institutions, in sports, in the NHS or in the media, but never making the changes needed to child protection to prevent it happening again’. (The analysis seems to have been amply borne out by events over the last month.)

The Law Society Gazette reported that Magistrate’s letter on ‘the acceptability of absent fathers’ leads to formal advice (2 December 2024). The lay justice, Elizabeth Slamer JP was the subject of a complaint to the Midlands Region Conduct Advisory Committee after her letter entitled ‘Single parenthood’, responding to a letter about the failure of the Child Support Agency, and remarking on the ‘relentless rise in the acceptability of’ absent fathers, was published in The Times newspaper in July. She was issued with formal advice after accepting responsibility for misusing her judicial status to lend weight to comments which might damage the public’s view on the impartiality of the magistracy.

The BBC reported that Shared parental leave skewed against lower earning families, analysis shows (2 December 2024), saying new analysis of the government’s shared parental leave scheme, introduced ten years ago, suggests that uptake is skewed against lower earners in favour of wealthier families in south-east England. The analysis was derived from a Freedom of Information request submitted to HMRC by campaign group The Dad Shift, show the top 20% of earners make up 60% of those to use shared parental leave, while only 5% came from the bottom 50% of earners. George Gabriel, co-founder of The Dad Shift said: ‘There’s a big awareness gap, there’s a complexity problem and there’s a challenge about most men feeling uncomfortable taking leave off the mother of their child.’

The Lead published a post by Zoe Grunewald on “Trauma Factories”: How paralysed family courts are destroying lives (4 December 2024), about court delays. Britain’s justice system is so clogged and has been underfunded for so long it’s coming apart at the seams, she writes, citing examples of cases where cases are taking years instead of months:

‘Family solicitor Oliver Conway says one of the longest cases he is working on has already lasted four and a half years. Conway describes these courts as “trauma factories”, as many of his clients have relapsed into substance abuse, suffered mental health crises, or been sectioned due to the prolonged stress of family court proceedings and trying to protect their children: “People self-medicate to get through it […] Imagine waiting over a year to find out if a stranger believes your ex raped you or not, and if he did, how he spends time with your kids, it is unimaginable”…’, 

The article is mainly focused on private law disputes where, we anticipate, the pathfinder courts and other initiatives may help improve things. 

The Times (£) reported on Dale Vince: tycoon loath to sell Ecotricity to settle £100m divorce (11 December 2024). This was basically a story about how much money might change hands after a celebrity divorce. Vince was reluctant to sell ‘his life’s work’ to pay for his divorce settlement, the court was told; the energy boss and Labour party donor, whose net worth is estimated at £100 million, came close to selling his business in 2021 and 2022 to pay for a possible divorce settlement, but ultimately decided not to because he ‘loved his work’ and wanted to ‘reconnect’ with his business. But his ex-wife said he’d been squandering the marital assets in a ‘wanton and reckless’ fashion. The Times squeezed another article out of the case, Inside Dale Vince’s messy divorce, from squats to yachts (14 December 2024) but we have yet to hear the final outcome. 

The Guardian was among many media outlets reporting that Father and stepmother of 10-year-old Sara Sharif found guilty of her murder (11 December 2024). The case, which can fairly be said to have shocked the nation, has reopened debate about the capacity of public services to monitor and act on the domestic physical abuse of children, as well as the proper scrutiny of those services by and through the courts. Sara had been made the subject of a child protection plan as soon as she was born in January 2013 because of concerns that she was at risk of harm from her father, Urfan Sharif, and mother Olga Domin, who has suspected learning difficulties. After the parents separated, a court had ordered that Sara Sharif should live with her father and his wife, Beinash Batool – the two defendants who had now been convicted of the 10-year-old girl’s brutal murder in August 2023, following a long period of what the judge at their trial described as ‘torture’. At the same trial Sara’s uncle, Faisal Malik, was convicted of causing or allowing her death. The judge, giving sentence, said: 

‘The degree of cruelty involved is almost inconceivable. This happened in plain sight, in front of the rest of the family, including, for the last eight months of Sara’s life, in front of you, Faisal Malik. The courts at the Old Bailey have been witness to many accounts of awful crimes, but few can have been more terrible than the account of the despicable treatment of this poor child that the jury in this case have had to endure.’

Urfan Sharif was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 40 years; Beinash Batool was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 33 years; and Faisal Malik to 16 years’ imprisonment. (R v Sharif, Batool and Malik, Sentencing remarks, 17 December 2024.) Further reports on the case include:

The Law Society Gazette reported that Court of Appeal to hear challenge to judges’ anonymity in Sara Sharif case (19 December 2024) after it emerged that a High Court judge in the Family Court had made an order anonymising the names of the judge or  judges responsible for the family court orders back in 2019 that Sara Sharif should live with her father and stepmother. Mr Justice Williams had made the anonymisation order in the context of an applications by 11 media parties for disclosure of the papers from historic Family Court proceedings relating to Sara Sharif and for the relaxation of the statutory reporting restrictions imposed by section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 so as to enable them to publish information contained within those papers. He later released his judgment: Louise Tickle & Ors v Surrey County Council & Ors [2024] EWHC 3330 (Fam). He refused the applicants Louise Tickle and Hannah Summers, reporting for Tortoise and the Observer, permission to appeal but they applied to and won permission from the Court of Appeal. Granting permission, the Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls said: ‘I have decided to grant the journalists permission to appeal the highlighted part of the judge’s order on the grounds that the arguments advanced in their Appellants’ Notice and supporting skeleton argument have a real prospect of success. Moreover, the appeal raises questions that are of considerable public importance and it is in the public interest that the Court of Appeal considers them.’ The appeal will be heard in mid-January and we hope to provide live coverage via BlueSky. See also: 

The Times (£) reported that Barrister cleared of misconduct over ‘boys’ club judge’ tweet (12 December 2024) after Dr Charlotte Proudman successfully exposed what she called the ‘double standards’ in the way the Bar Standards Board regulates barristers. Proudman was charged by the BSB after posting tweets criticising a judge, who was a member of the then men-only Garrick Club, for displaying a ‘boys’ club’ attitude in a judgment, and for his ‘minimisation of domestic abuse’; but other barristers who had tweeted rude things about other judges, or about her, were not the subject of disciplinary action. She claimed that the BSB was displaying sex discrimination and successfully argued that the case against her should be dropped. The Bar Disciplinary Tribunal, chaired by His Honour Nicholas Ainley, agreed: on 12 December 2024 the Tribunal dismissed all charges and the hearing has concluded, with full reasons to follow. We look forward to reading these. Other coverage of the case included: 

The Daily Mail reported that Fathers4Justice protester dressed as Santa Claus scales Trafalgar Square Christmas tree as he makes demand of Keir Starmer (15 December 2024). It seems the F4J group had drawn seasonal attention to its campaign for the recognition of sensible paternal child care by donning the garb of a mythical medieval folk hero, climbing up a giant fir tree in a public place and brandishing a picture of the Prime Minister bearing the legend ‘Put the father back into Xmas.’ Whether this will sway the family courts to put the father back in charge of the kids remains to be seen, notwithstanding fears to the contrary (see Telegraph story below). 

The Daily Telegraph reported that Abusers use Fathers 4 Justice ‘playbook’ to win custody, victims say (19 December 2024) suggesting, in an odd spin-off from the Sharif case, that the Fathers 4 Justice campaign (see Daily Mail story above) has influenced the way courts treated women’s claims of domestic abuse, and that this is resulting in more cases where children could be at risk of exposure to abuse by fathers, following Sara Sharif’s murder. Not satisfied with this topical peg, the story then pivots to parental alienation, citing the recent guidance by the Family Justice Council telling family court judges in England and Wales to give more weight to allegations of domestic abuse than to claims of ‘parental alienation’. The article then tries to link the suggestion that ‘parental alienation’ is a ‘playbook’ used by abusive men to the allegation that the Fathers 4 Justice campaign had influenced the courts’ approach to child welfare decisions, before quoting the founder of the F4J campaign saying more or less the opposite: ‘the safety of the child should always be the focus of the court’. In short, muddled. 

The Financial Times (£) reported that Court names alleged Chinese spy linked to Prince Andrew (16 December 2024) saying the man had ‘been publicly named as Tengbo Yang after a judge lifted an anonymity order, raising fresh questions about his connections to the British establishment’. The Chinese businessman appeared to have had dealings with Prince Andrew, and also with successive Conservative prime ministers, with a view to promoting business relations between China and the UK, but was now apparently being accused of intelligence gathering for the purposes of espionage. The King’s Bench Division Administrative Court imposed and then lifted the anonymity order in judicial review proceedings brought by the applicant, but the order published by the Judiciary website was from related proceedings in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission: see Tengbo Yang (formerly known as H6) -v- Secretary of State for the Home Department (order) (Appeal number: SC/205/2023), 16 December 2024. In the original proceedings, the Commission had refused an application by the anonymised H6 for a review of a decision by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to exclude him from the UK on the basis that exclusion was conducive to the public godd on grounds of national security: H6 v Secretary of State for the Home Department (12 December 2024). (It was this decision, presumably, now being challenged by judicial review.)

The Law Society Gazette reported that Family case must be reheard after barrister spoke to father and appeared for mother (17 December 2024). This concerned the case of F v M [2024] EWHC 3190 (Fam) in which Hayden J allowed an appeal against a child arrangements order after it had emerged that the barrister who represented the mother in had previously been approached by the father and discussed the case with him. The judge said ‘The weight of the professional obligation is to avoid the appearance or risk of unfairness and, in the time-honoured phrase, for justice not only to be done but to be seen to be done,’ adding ‘In this sphere, the bar is set high and for good reason. The integrity of the court process must be inviolable.’ The case was set for expeditious rehearing.

The BBC reported that Courts to remain involved in young person gender case (19 December 2024) saying a mother trying to stop her teenager being given cross-sex hormones to change their gender has ‘won her fight’ to keep the courts involved in the case, after her crowdfunded claim to stop the father arranging for the young person (referred to as Q) to access treatment for gender dysphoria. ‘The Court of Appeal has ruled it is “appropriate” for it to “keep an eye” on the case at a time of rapid change in gender services and regulation,’ the BBC says. There is no link in their report, but it appears to refer to the published judgment of the Court of Appeal in O v P & Anor [2024] EWCA Civ 1577. The report also says that ‘In a mark of public interest in the case, the one-day hearing on 11 December was livestreamed’ (although in fact it is fairly exceptional for civil appeals not to be livestreamed now). 

The Irish Independent reported that Couple in heated row over immersion use are before courts again as he alleges lights are being turned off while he’s showering (20 December 2024), saying Judge Alex Gabbett in the Family Law Court had criticised a couple for ‘arguing over silly things’ after being told that the wife had allegedly breached sworn undertakings given to court in relation to the use of an immersion switch in the €400,000 family home. It seems the couple have been before the court a number of times due to their heated (or possibly unheated) debate over who can and can’t get into hot water, and now there’s an issue about who is keeping the other in the dark. Or something. An electric version of gaslighting, perhaps. 

The Guardian reported that the Kremlin denies reports Asma al-Assad is seeking divorce and a return to London (23 December 2024), following her hurried exit from Damascus to Moscow following the collapse of her husband Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. Asma, who grew up in Britain, left to marry Assad in 2000. While her UK assets were frozen in March 2012, and she is subject to US sanctions, she retains British citizenship but the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has made clear she was not welcome to return to the UK. The reports that she may be seeking a divorce were made in Turkish media and were denied by the Russian government. 

BBC apologises after abortion trial collapse (23 December 2024). The BBC had to apologise after  Judge Ian Lawrie KC dismissed the jury in a case against a woman accused of illegally aborting her baby, after what the judge called  “appalling and sloppy” reporting from a BBC TV reporter from BBC Points West. Sophie Harvey, 25, and her boyfriend Elliot Benham, 25, accepted they had purchased abortion pills online, but she insisted she had not taken them before giving birth to a stillborn child in the bathroom of her home in Cirencester in 2018. The TV report said she took the pills. Defence counsel applied for the jury to be discharged due to the reporting, saying it would go to the issue of his client’s credibility as she maintained she did not take the abortion pill. See also: The Times (£) Judge lambasts BBC report that caused abortion trial to collapse. 

Wales Online had a report by Conor Gogarty on Life in the lab where tests can decide a child’s future (29 December 2024), explaining the work of the Cansford lab in Cardiff, which tests people’s hair and nails for drugs and alcohol. The lab carries out tests for workplaces and sporting bodies investigating performance-enhancing drug use, but the bulk of its work is done for family lawyers and social services. ‘Cansford invited us on a tour of its lab as part of the transparency scheme to shed more light on family courts,’ says Gogarty, and mentions some of the imaginative ways ‘donors’ try to evade the tests, and the concerns that have been raised about the accuracy, and risks of racial bias, of the tests. He said the staff gave some interesting — and concerning — insights at a time when the testing industry is facing some unsettling questions.

The Observer had a report on Councils failing to take homeless young people into care (29 December 2024) saying research had shown that councils are treating vulnerable 16- and 17-year-olds like homeless adults and placing them in unsuitable temporary housing rather than taking them into care, ‘waiting out the clock’ till they turn 18 and can be classed as adults. The research in question was by the Coram Institute for Children charity. The findings are based on accounts from young people across the country and were shared exclusively with the Observer. The report includes details of some of the affected cases. 

The Times (£) ended the year on a celebrity note with a report Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt reach divorce settlement after 8 years (31 December 2024) saying ‘The legal separation of the two actors is considered one of the longest and most contentious in Hollywood history’ but that ‘after a process that has already lasted nearly four times as long as the marriage it was meant to end, the former couple have reached a divorce settlement’. The Times recounts the saga in some detail, but presumably the conclusion of the matter will come as a relief, not least to some of the couple’s natural or adopted children, several of whom have reached adulthood in the meantime. 

BROADCAST & AUDIO COVERAGE

BBC Radio 4 broadcast Missing Pieces: The Lesbian Mothers Scandal (8 December 2024) about its investigation by Sophie Wilkinson into shockingly homophobic decisions by UK courts dating back to the 1970s till the early 1990s, to remove children from lesbian mothers. She interviews a number of those affected, including local politician and diversity champion Linda Bellos, who was only able to see her kids once a month after a family court judge found out she was a lesbian; and a woman in her 70s who had to pretend not to be gay in order to maintain custody of her children. 

BBC iPlayer, The Big Cases: Torture Behind Closed Doors (17 December 2024) explains the tragic story of Sara Sharif, who was just 10 years old when she was burned and beaten by her father and stepmother. (See newspaper coverage above.) The broadcast, presented by BBC reporter Daniel Sandford, includes interviews with police, prosecutors, teachers; footage from Pakistan where the rest of the family fled after her death, and from their arrest on return; and poignant footage of Sara herself, when alive, as an apparently cheerful little girl who wanted to grow up to be a singer. It all adds to a despairing sense of the many opportunities missed that might have saved her life. 

RECENT CASE COMMENTARY

The Financial Remedies Journal had a piece by Gwynfor Evans on Child Maintenance and Mortgage Payments – New Guidance (29 November 2024) prompted by the case of LM v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2024] UKUT 259 (AAC), discussing the complexity of the law and regulations relating to the way mortgage payments on a jointly owned property may reduce the amount of child maintenance payable by non-resident parent to parent with care. 

The Information Rights and Wrongs blog by Jon Baines had a piece, FOIA costs decision against applicant for failing to withdraw contempt application (5 December 2024), about the apparent threat by the First Tier Tribunal to award costs on a freedom of information requester in the case of Blackburn v The Royal Mint [2024] UKFTT 1085 (GRC). The tribunal appears to have been far more tolerant of failures by the defendant public body to comply with court orders, than of the applicant in failing to withdraw his contempt of court application in response (which they characterise as ‘unreasonable’ within the meaning of the procedural rules), and to have taken into account the applicant’s reference to pursuing a ‘campaign’ to encourage greater transparency. Baines comments: 

‘Well, if I’m to be considered a reasonable person, then I do not think it unreasonable for a person to decide not to withdraw such an application where they have waited more than two-and-half years for an answer from a public authority to a simple FOIA request, and where the public authority has failed to comply with an Order, because its lawyer chose not to acquaint himself with procedural rules.’ 

He adds that the tribunal has not yet actually ordered costs, having adjourned for submissions on AHB’s means, and a breakdown of the Royal Mint’s costs. 

Joshua Rozenberg on his A Lawyer Writes blog had a piece, What’s in a name? (19 December 2024) about In re C (A Child) (Change of Given Name) [2024] EWCA Civ 1582 in which the Court of Appeal reversed the refusal of Judge Tolson KC to allow a 15-year-old child, who identified as non-binary, to adopt a gender-neutral forename in place of their given masculine one. King LJ explained (at 64) that the appeal had been allowed because Judge Tolson ‘fell into error in his approach and application to the critical welfare analysis which comes from a proper application of the welfare checklist’. Each case turned on its own facts, and this was not to be taken as a broader ruling on ‘gender’.

Mark Senior, barrister with St John’s Buildings, contributed a helpful update on recent case law on post-adoption contact, ‘Adoption and contact: Where do we go from here?’ to Local Government Lawyer (18 December 2024).

NEW JUDGMENTS OF INTEREST

Re W ( Appeal: Fact-Finding) [2024] EWCA Civ 1590

This was an appeal against fact-finding conclusions in care proceedings where the Central London Family Court judge had found that a series of injuries to a baby had been inflicted by his mother and that the child’s father was aware of this. The ongoing case had reached its 80th week and the judge had had to read 4800 pages of documents and hear from eight expert witnesses in an 11-day hearing. The Court dismissed the parents’ appeal, concluding that HHJ Marin had ‘directed himself appropriately and accurately on matters of law. It is apparent that the Judge did indeed stand back to survey the wide canvas of material before reaching his ultimate conclusions; he considered carefully the parents’ relationship, and their inter-action with professionals, and their lack of honesty; he plainly had regard to the many contributions to this enquiry including from family members, colleagues, health and police records.’ [para 91]

Calderdale MBC v Cheshire East MBC & ors [2024] EWCA Civ 1565

This was a dispute between two LAs as to ‘ordinary residence’ and which of them was responsible for the care of a baby born prematurely in Manchester in July.  The family had long been involved with children’s services in Cheshire where they faced eviction from a private tenancy and the mother moved to a caravan (a seasonal holiday let) in Calderdale in May. This detailed judgment by Cobb LJ will be helpful to anyone trying to navigate the law on similar issues. In this case, the Court agreed with the Family Court judge that the baby was ordinarily resident in Calderdale, which he had designated as the responsible authority although care proceedings had been started by Cheshire on the day the baby was born.

Re T (Appeal: Findings of Fact) [2024] EWHC 3327 (Fam)

This judgment features a number of allegations by a mother about a father that became subject to an appeal to the High Court. An interesting point is the decision by Mr Justice Cobb regarding the father’s habit of hitting his five year old child with a hard-soled slipper. Amongst criticisms of the judgment by Mr Recorder Jack in Nottingham Family Court, Cobb J observed that it was wrong to apply a ‘reasonable punishment’ criminal law concept to such actions, rather than analysing the harm that was caused to the child. The Recorder had also applied inappropriate standards of criminal law when considering sexual assaults on the mother. The appeal was allowed and the case returned to a different judge. (Note: Mr Justice Cobb here is still finishing some High Court cases while now sitting in the Court of Appeal as Lord Justice Cobb, above.)

Wakefield Metropolitan District Council v A & Ors [2024] EWFC 345 (B)

The approach taken by the local authority in this case is rightly described by HHJ Trotter-Jackson as ‘inexplicable’. Three young children were settled, living with Mr and Mrs H as LA foster carers. Mr and Mrs H wanted to become the children’s special guardians and were prepared to take a reduction in the amount of financial support they received from the LA when foster care allowances were replaced by SG allowances. However the reduction proposed was too extreme to be practicable as Mrs H needed to stay home as a full time carer for a couple of years until the youngest child was in school. Rather than come to an agreement on this, the LA was arguing that care orders were necessary. The exasperation of the judge is clear – especially when she calculated that the LA plan for long term foster care would cost a total of £657,000 more than Mr and Mrs H’s requirements! The judge described the social work evidence as ‘incoherent and recalcitrant’, ‘blinkered and obstinate’ and a ‘wholesale failure to put the welfare of these children first’. She agreed with the Cafcass guardian’s description of the LA plan as ‘unsavoury, unsatisfactory, and unfathomable’. Eventually the lawyer for the LA (a Ms Reed, but not TP Chair Lucy Reed KC) went back to someone more senior for instructions and the judge was able to make the SGOs, on the basis that ‘It has never been in doubt, in these proceedings, that Mr and Mrs H were the right carers for these children’.

On a transparency point, the judge canvassed views on publishing the judgment and all parties agreed except the LA, whose representatives held some misinformed views on what constitutes ‘precedent’.

A v Adopt London North & ors [2024] EWFC 273

Another unfortunate example of poor LA practice. Mrs Justice Theis was very greatly concerned that adoption support for three traumatised children took a year to agree, partly because of the LA’s fundamental misunderstanding of the relevant legal framework. Significant delay and lack of certainty had been contrary to the welfare needs of these vulnerable children. The judge  commented: ‘It is hoped this judgment will prevent other prospective adopters having to endure such prolonged uncertainty by delays in adoption support assessments being undertaken that accord with the statutory obligations of the local authority.’ [para 4]. The Law Society Gazette (2 January 2025) reported this as ‘Judge praises lawyers for helping and significant delay in adoption case’ because matters were only resolved through the efforts of a pro bono team of lawyers acting for the aunt, the adoptive applicant.

LEGAL BLOGGING

We haven’t been able to report on any current legal blogging this month but we’ve updated this post about a High Court hearing we attended – International contact after a defended abduction to add a link to TNA where the anonymised judgment from Mrs Justice Arbuthnot has now been published. We recommend having a look at the judgment, Father v Mother & Anor [2024] EWHC 3332 (Fam), because we didn’t have space to cover all the legal points in our post.

OTHER TRANSPARENCY etc NEWS

The government announced New measures to protect victims of domestic abuse (28 November 2024), saying ‘Domestic abusers will be ordered to stay away from their victims and face tougher restrictions with the launch of new protective orders today.’ This referred to the official launch (there was a pilot scheme earlier this year) of Domestic Abuse Protection Notices (DAPNs) and Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs) which can be issued by all courts (family, civil, and criminal), to protect victims from all types of domestic abuse including physical, psychological, stalking, and coercive control. They will initially launch in Greater Manchester, three London boroughs and with the British Transport Police. They will also be used in Cleveland and North Wales from early 2025 ahead of a national rollout, the announcement said. 

The Judiciary website published the Family Court Annual Report 2024 by the President, Sir Andrew McFarlane on 2 December 2024, with the somewhat embarrassing tagline ‘Independance, impartiality, integrity’. (When it was launched, people questioned whether the Independent newspaper should actually be called, as a noun, the Independant.) In his foreword, the President says this is the first such annual report for the Family Court, which was created ten years ago, and that its publication ‘is a key step in the general move of the Family Court towards greater transparency’. Among the figures given for the volume of work undertaken by the court, it is disappointing to note that the average (mean) case duration for public law children cases has risen from 29.6 weeks in 2018 to 43.5 weeks in 2023, and the percentage of disposals within the statutory target of 26 weeks has fallen from 52% to only 29%. The President blames this on an increase in the volume of applications in public law cases from 2017 onwards, compounded with delays during the Covid-19 pandemic. The report looks at what has been done to address the problem, along with other projects of the Public Law Working Group. There have been increases in the volume and duration of private law cases, too, which we discussed in a separate blog post: Updates on the operation of family courts – mainly about delay. 

The National Audit Office (NAO) announced that it is currently investigating Improving family court services for children, with a view to reporting in Spring 2025. It notes the delays (see above) currently afflicting both public and private law cases, and will examine whether the MoJ and other bodies involved in the family court system in England and Wales are managing the service efficiently and effectively to improve outcomes for children. It will look at the extent to which MoJ and others: 

  • understand demand and capacity within the family court system across England and Wales
  • have adopted a whole system approach to improve family courts performance
  • understand and account for the needs of different groups within the family courts system

Ramsden’s Solicitors sent us an email with a press release from their blog post trumpeting how their Landmark family law success highlights our commitment to protecting vulnerable clients (10 December 2024). It describes as a ‘remarkable legal outcome’ whereby their senior associate ‘recently secured an extremely rare court order to terminate parental responsibility – an achievement that many legal experts consider a “once in a career” occurrence.’ We beg to differ. It may well have been ‘a complex case involving serious domestic abuse concerns, where the removal of parental responsibility was deemed necessary for the child’s wellbeing’ and no doubt the firm did well for their client; but the granting of such an order is not nearly as rare as the blog appears to claim. Indeed, such applications are becoming significantly less rare. There have been several published cases in the last couple of years and no doubt more that aren’t reported. While it may be beneficial to inform vulnerable clients of the services provided by a firm, crowing about ‘victory’ (as the email sent to us was headed) in a complex case involving child welfare may strike some as a bit too gung-ho. 

The UK Constitutional Law Association blog had a piece by David Erdos on A Clear Oversight? Inquiring into the Information Commissioner’s 2024 Statutory Review of Journalism (17 December 2024) comparing the ‘robust and comprehensive’ UK statutory review of the extent of journalism’s compliance with data protection law and good practice which the ICO was expected to have produced in 2024 with what it actually produced: an Outcomes report, which Erdos says ‘failed to come to any definitive view as to the extent of journalistic compliance and also elected not to proactively publicise its Review Report in any way at the time of its release’.

The Law & Religion UK blog had a piece on the Law Commission: scoping financial remedies on divorce (18 December 2024) saying that, half a century after the passage of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, the Government has asked the Law Commission to review whether the current law is working effectively, and delivering fair and consistent outcomes for divorcing couples. In its review, the Law Commission will carry out a detailed analysis of the current laws on financial remedies, to determine whether there are problems with the current framework which require law reform, and what the options for reform might look like. The Law Commission has published a scoping report on the 18 December 2024, along with a summary of the report and a Welsh version of the summary. 

The BBC flagged up the national roll-out of the Reporting Pilot as Landmark new rules to bring transparency to family courts (20 December 2024). Sanchia Berg explained that ‘Transparency will no longer be restricted to pilot courts and will be permanent’ from 27 January 2025. She goes on to cite examples of reporting under the scheme and quotes Lucy Reed KC as chair of Transparency Project saying this expansion was ‘a great step forward’ but ‘there is still a great deal more cultural and practical change required before the Family Court can say it is operating as transparently as possible’. We reported the new rules which take effect as practice directions and statutory instruments in a separate post: One small step at a time – from pilot to practice direction. 

FAMILY LAW IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS

Iraq

The Times (£) had an article by solicitor Amy Rowe saying There is still work to do in tackling forced marriage (5 December 2024). It points out that a bill before the Iraqi parliament will, if passed, reduce the marriageable age for girls from 18 to nine, a development that could ‘lead to an increase in forced marriage, child rape and exploitation’. This would be a retrograde step for female rights, says Rowe, but points out that the risk of individuals from early marriage is not limited to Iraq. Even in the England & Wales, ‘the problem persists because forced marriages are often arranged by families and victims are frequently forced to marry abroad, including in countries where children can legally be married.’ 

The proposed legislation in Iraq has been the subject of other coverage, including: 

France

The month ended with the depressing news (via the BBC) that in the notorious Gisèle Pelicot rape case: 17 men appeal against convictions (30 December 2024). The four-month trial at the Palais de Justice in Avignon revealed how Dominique Pelicot had incapacitated his wife with drugs and filmed himself raping her while she was unconscious, and had also recruited dozens of other men to do likewise over a period of years. After they were convicted, the 72-year-old Dominique Pelicot said via his lawyer that he would not appeal against his 20-year jail sentence, but 17 of the 49 other men who were convicted of raping or sexually assaulting Ms Pelicot at Dominique’s behest have said they will appeal. 

Gisèle has become something of a folk hero for her courageous stand against what appears to have been society’s cultural misogyny: in such a case, she said, ‘La honte doit changer de camp’ – ‘The shame must switch sides’. Where traditionally it would be the victims veiled in shame, now it is those perpetrators, who seemed to have thought it was acceptable. Many of them covered their faces during the trial, as well they might. Whatever legal procedures they rely on now, you could hardly call them appealing. As criminal barrister Max Hardy says in Gisèle – An Acclamation:

Any man who has followed this case without engaging in serious soul searching most likely cleaves to the empty and disingenuous cliché: not all men. Of course not all men but what Pelicot and his ‘regular guy’ accomplices have shown is that it can be any man. This is a man problem and not one for Gisèle or any woman to solve. Gisèle means pledge and by standing up for herself her example will, I hope, act as a promise to victims everywhere that bad deeds brought to light bring shame only to perpetrators.

Gisèle’s courage and determination to see the case through helped overcome some of the obstacles such a prosecution faced in France. As  Elise Carnot of Bolt Burdon Kemp solicitors pointed out in a blog post The changes needed after the Gisèle Pélicot trial: ‘Shame must change sides’

‘The Pélicot case exposed significant legal challenges in prosecuting sexual crimes in France, particularly French law’s emphasis on proving threat, force, or violence over prioritising the survivor’s experience and consent—an approach that often undermines justice for victims.’

See also: 

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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