Posts
Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup: October 2026
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 GB News (among others)...
Repeal of the presumption of parental involvement
We have been posting about this topic for some years now - most recently in February this year. Last week, there was another blaze of publicity about the repeal by Parliament of the legislation introduced in 2014 that added a presumption to the Children Act 1989 where...
Lowering the temperature: a shared care order
This is a joint post by Paul Magrath and Harriet Humberstone, who last month attended a final hearing before Recorder McAllister in a case listed for three days at the Central Family Court in London. Paul and Harriet are both ‘duly authorised lawyers’ aka legal...
Reporting Transparency in our Family Courts: Has it made a difference?
Last week the law firm Simons Muirhead & Burton (SMB) hosted a panel discussion at their London office on Reporting Transparency in our Family Courts: Has it made a difference? The panel was chaired by Tessa Bray, a partner at SMB, who explained that in...
Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup: Aug-Sep 2026
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 Times (£) had a...
Is the Child Focused Court model allowing time to really focus on children’s welfare?
An important new judgment from the Court of Appeal was published on the judiciary website this week – Re C (Child Arrangements Orders; Domestic Abuse; Child Focused Court) [2026] EWCA Civ 1216 This was a case about contact between four children and their...
A family damaged by court proceedings?
A 12 year old boy (who I’ll call ‘Jon’ – not his real name) had been subject to private law proceedings for more than three years. In a final hearing before HHJ Gibbons at Oxford Family Court this summer, the Cafcass guardian said that Jon had been failed by the...
Special guardianship orders and threshold of harm
This is a guest post by Saara Parijaat. Saara is an undergraduate law student at the London School of Economics and hopes to pursue a career at the Bar. Re E (Special Guardianship; Public Law Proceedings) [2026] EWCA Civ 1167 is a recently published Court of Appeal...
‘The use of AI by social workers may lead to injustice in family court proceedings’
The law reform and human rights charity, JUSTICE, is proposing ‘a rights- and rule of law-based framework’ for the use of AI in the justice system – Ensuring technology strengthens justice and the rule of law. We’re glad someone is! A briefing paper, Social work use...
Change of school for a child during care proceedings
This week, I attended a short hearing at Cardiff Family Court about a local authority wanting to move a child under an interim care order to a school nearer where he currently lives. His mother didn’t agree, and she applied to court to object. With only a few days...