Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup

• Correcting, clarifying or commenting on media reports of family court cases

• Explaining or commenting on published judgments of family court cases

• Highlighting other transparency news

MEDIA (MIS)REPORTS OF FAMILY COURT CASES

The Daily Mail/Mail Online, the Sun and others – Byron James commented on a barrage of misreporting faced by divorce lawyers from (some sections of) the media. 5 family law myths in the media, a guest post from @byron_barrister for @seethrujustice is here:

 

Channel 4 – Launched their new drama Kiri, about a children’s social worker. The first episode of the Jack Thorne drama featuring Sarah Lancaster is available on catch up here.

We saw only only positive reviews from mainstream media outlets (from the Express –who mention the media wittchhunt in terms- to the Guardian and others); and plenty of pragmatic and constructive responses from the social work sector, including from lead voices like BASW.

Some media outlets reported the response of the social work sector as a story in it’s own right. Those articles, Kiri gets rave reviews – but social workers criticise plot, at BBC News; Kiri’ Faces Backlash From Social Workers Over ‘Negative And Inaccurate Representation’ Of The Profession at Huffington Post, together with Community Cares Baffled and gripped: how social workers reacted to Channel 4’s social work drama, pretty much captured the sector’s responses between them:

 

Transparency Positives

The amount of recent reports on children’s social work (and family law) and the range of mainstream media news outlets – From the Victoria Derbyshire Show, Channel 4 News, the Sun, the Times, and the Independent on the state of statutory child protection; to the Emma Barnett Show on Radio 5 on rising stress related sickness in statutory children’s social work; to ITV Tonight with Divorce Wars:

 

NEWLY PUBLISHED CASES FOR EXPLANATION OR COMMENT

CN v Poole Borough Council  [2017] EWCA civ 2185 – Who pays for the harm done to children? CN v Poole and the law of negligence. Sarah Phillimore explained the case decision and some of the wider law of negligence, for professionals and families alike:

 

Serious Case Review Child G – Wolverhampton Safeguarding Children’s Board published a review that recommended safeguarding boards look at developing guidance for social workers on how to use social media to enhance assessments. See Social workers could use social media checks to ‘enhance’ assessments, serious case review says in Community Care and some twitter threads it provoked here, here and here:

 

IN OTHER TRANSPARENCY NEWS

Press regulation – The House of Lords voted in favour of amendments to the Data Protection Bill, supporting implementation of the second part of the Leveson Inquiry into alleged press misconduct, and the imposition of costs consequences for publishers not signed up with a regulator recognised by the press recognition panel (PRP). Reports varied from Brian Cathcart (of Hacked Off) at Inforrm to Matt Hancock, Culture Secretary in the Guardian. See also some summaries of the differing views at The Independent and the Press Gazette.

 

Privacy, the common law and a celebrity divorce – A guest post view from David Burrows on the law behind recent reports of  a celebrity divorce:

 

IPSO – IPSO’s Standards Officer launched new public information guides including on what to expect from court reporting (family courts and other non criminal courts excluded):

 

 
 

Feature pic: Courtesy of Flickr Lauri Heikkinenon via Creative Commons licence – with thanks