Childrens Act News
It has been held by Sir James Munby the President of The Family Division that a party to private Children’s Act Proceedings cannot disclose details to either third parties or in particular a broadcaster who wished to comment upon the case.
In this particular case the parties had even agreed that they would not speak to the media in the future. And yet several years later the mother is seeking to do precisely that. This has been prevented by Sir James Munby, effectively upholding the decision from 2002.
Perhaps rather rashly and certainly very opportunistically, the mother said she wanted to take her case “to the court of public opinion”. Perhaps not surprisingly the Judge held that such matters as family dynamics are not best served by a complete airing of all the issues in public.
Whilst the Judge concluded that things had moved on since 2002 as to how people see issues of privacy the fundamental tenet in this case was that the family’s and the children’s issues were best served by privacy. In this case therefore it was seen as appropriate and against the general assumption that things should be more open.
Generally that seems to be a very commonsense approach because perhaps the issues now still remaining are those to do with the parents’ adult issues and concepts of matters and respective blame games rather than any attempt to help the children.
4th June 2018
