A family court case has hit the headlines over the past year, not so much for anything remarkable about the Family Law Act 1996 dispute in front of the judges, but because the husband (according to press reports) is friendly with prominent right wing politicians and was temporarily ‘ousted’ from his post as Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham for being ‘anti-woke’. The husband has made successive applications to keep the family court case private and anonymous. Alongside this, the wife has applied for an order that The Guardian newspaper reveal the source of some information it received on a confidential aspect of the family court proceedings.
There’s no shortage of stories and photographs of the couple, Professor and Ms Tooley, in the public realm, some of these show them both beaming alongside more familiar faces, such as Richard Tice, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Ms Tooley also has quite a high profile online, famed for her cake-making business. We’re putting links in this post where relevant and adding some of the commentary at the end. The post will focus on the legal issues about privacy of proceedings and confidential sources in three published family court judgments. The two High Court judgments appeared on TNA earlier this month.
We’re interested in these questions in the case:
- Whether the media can attend and report on Family Law Act 1996 proceedings that are normally held in private
- Whether defamation proceedings that are normally held in public can be held in private if they are connected with family proceedings
- Whether a journalist can be made to disclose a source of information, relating to defamation, that was obtained from non-public material in a family court case.
Professor James Tooley v Cynthia Tooley [2025] EWFC 81 (B) – March 2025
District Judge Nutley, in Milton Keynes Family Court, said that this wasn’t a complex case and it was notable only because it took up far too much of the court’s strained resources and because of the media interest. The judge had already made a decision at an earlier hearing to allow the media to attend (against Professor Tooley’s wishes) and this hearing was about what they were going to publish. Ms Tooley wasn’t objecting to publication. Lucy Osborne of The Guardian had made written representations about open justice.
You can see the stories Lucy Osborne was working on here: Vice-chancellor’s claim he was targeted for his ‘anti-woke’ beliefs rejected (6 February 2025); Inquiry into Buckingham University chief’s relationship with young woman ‘flawed’ (12 February 2025)
The judgment tells us that Professor Tooley had applied in October 2024 for a non molestation order (NMO – often just described as an injunction) against Ms Tooley; she had applied a month later for a NMO against him. These were applications under the Family Law Act 1996. The basis of their dispute was Ms Tooley making complaints to Professor Tooley’s employer (the university) about his relationship with a young woman. The judge noted that as at this point, there had been very limited media coverage of the family court dispute itself. Professor Tooley had however been suspended from the university in October 2024 and reinstated in February 2025.
(Lucy Osborne’s pieces explain that there’s a lot of controversy over whether the suspension was about his relationships or about his politics.)
The judge said, about the alleged harassment that led to the NMO applications:
38 … Essentially, the wife was said to have behaved in this way by distributing private documents, and the husband by being verbally abusive. In this context, the nature of the husband’s previous relationship was little more than background information.
39. Much about the parties is already in the public domain. But the nature of the applications in these Family Law Act proceedings, and the allegations made in support of the wife’s application, are not.
A NMO made earlier, in November, included a restriction on either the husband or the wife communicating with the media. Professor Tooley applied to vary this because he needed to respond to some of the public questions that were being asked about the integrity of the process that had led to his suspension and reinstatement. The judge allowed this variation but otherwise the term in the NMO that neither should talk to the media stayed in place.
Professor Tooley also applied for there to be no publication about the hearings held in private and attended by reporters, and that if there was a published judgment, the parties should be anonymised. The judge took as his starting point the case of Allan v Clibbery [2002] EWCA Civ 45 which says that there is no automatic restriction on publication of FLA proceedings. Professor Tooley’s lawyer argued that this had been doubted by HHJ Reardon in a recent case, G v S [2024] EWFC 231 (B) where she had suggested that the starting point in FLA cases should be confidentiality. DJ Nutley agreed that this wasn’t a satisfactory area of law but he was bound by Allan v Clibbery, Professor Tooley hadn’t presented a strong enough case to outweigh the importance of open justice: the judge concluded that non-anonymised publication was allowed.
The judge went on to say that, however, he had discretion to treat the application as one for a reporting restriction order (RRO) which would oblige him to balance Article 8 privacy rights with Article 10 freedom of expression rights. After conducting this exercise, he concluded that there should be a RRO but narrower than the terms Professor Tooley had wanted. We have asked for and obtained a copy of this RRO via the Judicial Press Office and can see the limited pieces of information restricted. We don’t know whether the media who were covering the case at the time took issue with this, but it isn’t clear to us that the media at large (as opposed to any reporters attending already) had been notified of the proposal to make a RRO and, if not, what they might have said if they had known. They might have argued that the restricted information is of some potential public interest.
The judge said he had addressed the parties’ Article 8 rights to privacy by:
- Putting only limited restrictions in place;
- Recognising that there was already a substantial amount of material concerning the parties and their separation in the public domain;
- Protection remained in place from an earlier order, preventing the parties from engaging with the press, except in limited circumstances.
He concluded that the starting point is open justice: the importance of open justice and the legitimate public interest in reporting this case justified publication.
It might seem surprising to allow publicity about NMOs. The hearings are held in private and journalists are allowed to attend and report but as HHJ Reardon had commented in G v S, this is perhaps surprising, when FLA cases often involve litigants in person whose witness statements can be highly personal and who may not appreciate how much can be externally reported. In the Tooley hearings, Ms Tooley was representing herself while Professor Tooley had legal representation.
Judgments in such cases are rarely published and there is no specific rule that parties must be anonymised, although by convention they often are, particularly where children are involved or mentioned. Considering how much controversy surrounded Professor Tooley’s role as Vice Chancellor, and that his suspension had followed allegations by his wife, the judge could see the public interest in allowing the media to attend and report, while taking the precaution of restricting some details that he didn’t think would further public understanding.
Cynthia Nkiruka Tooley v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2026] EWHC 549 (KB) – January 2026
There were two half-day hearings in the High Court on 13th January – this is the judgment from the morning. Mrs Justice Heather Williams was due to deal with a number of applications involving Ms Tooley, but this judgment only covers an application by Professor Tooley to have the hearing held in private. It looks as though the morning hearing just dealt with some directions (unpublished) and with the application for closed proceedings. This wasn’t family proceedings and would normally be held in open court. The application was unsuccessful, which is why we can also read about the afternoon application.
The situation is quite confusing so here’s a basic outline of the context, extracted from the two judgments. Ms Tooley said she had been contacted by a journalist from the Guardian in early 2025 who asked her about a matter that had been mentioned somewhere in the FLA case. The journalist indicated that her source for this information was Professor Tooley’s lawyers. The Guardian didn’t go on to write about this particular matter. However, the Daily Mail did. Ms Tooley therefore believed her husband’s lawyers had passed information from the family court to both the Guardian and the Mail.
Ms Tooley was claiming against the Daily Mail for defamation and malicious falsehood. The claim was proceeding in the Kings Bench Division of the High Court, not the Family Division or Family Court. It’s not clear how Professor Tooley got involved because he doesn’t appear to be a party to the case with the Mail. However, his lawyer was there and she said he was concerned that Ms Tooley, who had been ordered to return some private documents in the family proceedings, would use the High Court hearing to undermine orders that had been made in the family court:
‘by airing in this forum those documents which have been directed to be treated as private and returned to Professor Tooley. That appears to be the main point, although it is also said that the claimant will use this hearing as a vehicle to air allegations against Professor Tooley that are of a personal nature.’ [4]
Ms Tooley and the Guardian both opposed the application for the hearing to take place in private. The judge said at the outset:
I refuse the application, I do so for the following reasons. It is very well established that the starting point is that hearings are to take place in public. It is a fundamental tenant [this is probably a transcription error for ‘tenet’] of court proceedings and the importance of open justice has been recognised in innumerable decisions which, in the interest of time, I do not propose to cite today. The onus is therefore on Ms Gattrell [Prof Tooley’s lawyer] to establish a basis upon which it is necessary – and the test is one of necessity – to depart from the open justice approach. [6]
The judge went on to explain that the afternoon’s hearing related to information that was said to have been passed to the Guardian, about a civil case at Luton County Court. The Luton case wasn’t family proceedings and she didn’t think she would need to hear about family proceedings in the afternoon. She commented that, so far, Ms Tooley was conducting herself responsibly so she didn’t anticipate anything inappropriate, but that Professor Tooley’s lawyer could stay for the afternoon if she wanted to. (As the hearing was public, any member of the public was entitled to observe.) Although there was no basis of necessity for closed proceedings, even if there was, the judge said she would have held as much of the hearing in public as possible.
So it seemed that Professor Tooley thought Ms Tooley would air some personal details about the family court case during the public hearing, but the judge thought that was unlikely or manageable.
Cynthia Nkiruka Tooley v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2026] EWHC 548 (KB)– January 2026
Having decided in the morning that the afternoon’s hearing would be held in open court, we don’t know if anyone actually turned up to listen. We haven’t seen any media coverage since January. There’s no suggestion in the judgment that details from the family court case were raised. We can see that Professor Tooley’s lawyer ‘appeared’ for him even though the judge had said in the morning she didn’t need to be there. In view of Ms Tooley’s evidence about the source of information, perhaps the firm itself wanted to keep updated with court decisions.
The afternoon hearing was an application by Ms Tooley for a ‘Norwich Pharmacal order’ which is an order for an injunction to make someone (usually a journalist) tell the court where they got some information i.e. in this case to compel the media to reveal their sources.
As we’ve discussed in other posts, the courts are very reluctant to make a journalist reveal their sources, see for example, Tickle v The Father & Ors [2025] EWFC 160. However, if someone can show the court they want to bring a good claim to a civil court but they can only pursue this by finding out how some information got passed on, they can apply for disclosure of that source under Norwich Pharmacal Co v Customs and Excise Commissioners [1974] A.C. 133 (at page 175):
“…if through no fault of his own a person gets mixed up in the tortious acts of others so as to facilitate their wrong doing he may incur no personal liability but he comes under a duty to assist the person who has been wronged by giving him full information and disclosing the identity of the wrongdoers.”
The ‘tortious acts’ that Ms Tooley alleged were the Mail breaching her privacy and publishing a defamatory and false story about her.
In order to obtain a Norwich Pharmacal order, the person ordered to identify the source of the information must have facilitated the wrongdoing. If they were merely an innocent witness they could not be made to disclose information. Ms Tooley therefore had to show that the Guardian were mixed up in the wrongdoing somehow to get her order.
Ms Tooley said she needed to confirm the identity of the source that had leaked ‘non-public court material linked to the alleged publication of that material by The Daily Mail, in an article published on 23 April 2025’ [8]. As mentioned by the judge that morning, the article was about a different set of ongoing civil proceedings. That case involved Ms Tooley being accused of theft by a former employer. You can read the offending article here – Estranged wife of high-profile free speech academic ‘stole £12,000 from company run by lover who was 28 years her senior’. The civil case was at Luton County Court and hearings would be held in public, although the outcome doesn’t seem to be reported anywhere. It should be noted that despite the use of terms such as ‘theft’ and ‘stolen’, this wasn’t a police prosecution – it was a civil claim by a former business associate.
Ms Tooley said she was applying for an order against the Guardian because one of its journalists had obtained the ‘non-public information’ from her husband’s lawyers, although the Guardian didn’t publish anything on it. She said she’d been told it was his law firm who’d breached her privacy, but she wanted a witness statement from the Guardian to confirm that. As is customary, the Guardian resisted the application on the principle of protecting journalistic sources.
In order to be successful with a Norwich Pharmacal order, the claimant has to show that the information relates to the involvement of a ‘wrongdoer’ i.e. someone in the chain of communication did something unlawful against her. Ms Tooley thought that the Mail were in the wrong in receiving private information and using it to defame her. She believed she needed evidence about the source from the ‘innocent’ Guardian in order to succeed against the ‘wrongdoing’ Mail. She also wanted confirmation of the law firm’s involvement because she was making a complaint against them to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. Interestingly, when the Guardian’s lawyer argued that Ms Tooley could find out what she needed through other avenues, Ms Tooley replied by referring to the delay of pursuing matters via the Information Commissioner’s Office which she had been informed could take up to 18 months. She also referred to the difficulties of obtaining the information that she wanted via a subject access request she had made to the law firm, which had not yet been dealt with.
Ms Tooley failed to establish the criteria for the Norwich Pharmacal disclosure because the judge concluded there was insufficient evidence that the Guardian was mixed up with and had facilitated the Mail publication. The three criteria for a disclosure order had not been met – these are
- a wrong must have been carried out, or arguably carried out, by an ultimate wrongdoer;
- there must be the need for an order to enable action to be brought against the ultimate wrongdoer; and
- the person against whom the order is sought must: (a) be mixed up in so as to have facilitated the wrongdoing; and (b) be able or likely to be able to provide the information necessary to enable the ultimate wrongdoer to be sued. [22]
The judge went on to emphasise that the claimant’s case was too weak and vague to reach the threshold and the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of journalistic sources.
However, although the Guardian are now out of the picture, it seems Ms Tooley is still proceeding against the Mail, and will again be raising questions about whether her husband’s lawyer breached some family court rules on privacy by giving information from the family court case to journalists. It isn’t clear yet whether Ms Tooley believes that the lawyer giving information to the media was prohibited by the RRO or the NMO or is in some other way a breach of her privacy rights.
Transparency and open justice issues
It’s unusual to hear about one case that involves these issues across the family court, county court, and defamation in the High Court. We think it’s very helpful to be able to read about how the judges are balancing the legitimate public interest in the university and its Vice Chancellor with the different arguments about family court privacy that Professor and Ms Tooley have made to advance their respective cases.
Unfortunately for Professor Tooley, his marital dispute spilled over into problems with his employer that were only too newsworthy in 2025. This led to his odd position, as a litigant who is a renowned free-speech champion, constantly trying to shut down discussion by excluding the media from attending and reporting on court hearings.
From an open justice point of view, it’s encouraging that both DJ Nutley and Heather Williams J weighed up the relevant privacy and freedom of speech rights and refused the attempts to curtail press attendance and reporting, and both published important judgments. It seems there were no children of the family to protect from media intrusion, and there was no indication that the third parties mentioned in the press were vulnerable.
We’ve not seen any reference to financial remedy proceedings. If there are any, they may not be reported, but if the defamation claim results in a judgment, this probably will be.
Articles expressing outrage about Professor Tooley’s tribulations with Buckingham University include:
A toxic divorce, police called over an air pistol – and a missing cat. The Kafkaesque tale of how the boss of Britain’s only anti-woke university, who’s famous for attacking cancel culture, has been summarily CANCELLED Guy Adams in The Daily Mail, 18 October 2024
James Tooley’s ordeal is over – but why was he ever suspended? Toby Young in The Spectator, 29 January 2025
Special report: The Buckingham University coup The Critic 24 June 2025
The university website doesn’t currently show Professor Tooley as its Vice Chancellor.
Image: Graduation Cap by Clever Cupcakes on Flickr