Blog
An interesting judgment about reporting restrictions
This post is about a case called : A and B (Children) [2018] EWHC 3491 (Fam) (20 December 2018). In this case the recently retired President of the Family Division Sir James Munby had to deal with an application for reporting restriction orders arising from care...
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Journalists and legal bloggers sitting in a row
Yesterday I had a commitment in London and determined to do a bit of legal blogging whilst in town. I had skim-read the lists for the Family Division and Court of Appeal at the Royal Court of Justice before getting on the train, and planned to make my way there to...
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Legal blogging – a day in Cardiff Family Court
L Earlier this month, I had my first opportunity to attend the Family Court under the legal blogging pilot, Practice Direction 36J. I’d had some correspondence with the judges in the court nearest to me, Cardiff (which hears cases from numerous local authority areas...
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Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup
Correcting, clarifying or commenting on media reports of family court casesExplaining or commenting on published judgments of family court casesHighlighting other transparency news MEDIA (MIS)REPORTS OF FAMILY COURT CASES The Daily Mail and others - We commented (to...
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Hi Sky, Corrected your misleading headline, love TP xxx
Thanks to Emily Ward for alerting us to this gem of a headline from Sky News : Man loses court fight over wife's 'flirtatious' kisses on text messages.A family court judge has said a woman's kisses on texts to her former husband are not proof he wasn't abusing her....
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International Online Courts Forum: what we learned
“More than 150,000 people benefited from online justice in 2018”, according to a press release last week from HM Courts & Tribunals Service. Of these, more than 23,000 made applications using the new online divorce portal launched to the public in April 2018, and...
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Another runaway mum in the news – what’s the story?
Shortly before Christmas reports began to emerge of a young mother who had disappeared with her little boy, and of the High Court Judge who gave permission for the family to be publicly named and photos shown in order to help locate them. At the time we weren't sure...
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Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup
We dedicate this issue to District Judge Nicholas Crichton (CBE), FDAC and transparency pioneer, who sadly died on 17th December 2019. (See this JustGiving page set up by his family and his obituary in the Times) Correcting, clarifying or commenting on media reports...
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Quality Circle established in Sussex
This is a guest post by barrister Martin Downs (@MartinJDowns) and social worker Nicola McGeown (@NicolaMcgeown) about an interesting project running in Sussex. It is a commonplace that the family justice system has faced a decade of constrained budgets, increased...
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Was the risk really bad enough to justify the remedy?
This question was asked by Lord Justice Peter Jackson in a judgment reported last month, Re F (A Child: Placement Order: Proportionality) [2018] EWCA Civ 2761 The risk here was of future significant harm and the remedy was a closed adoption. However, this...
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