Cambridge Family Law Practice

The names of the parents of two children should be added to a published judgement once their youngest child turns 18, a judge has ruled, to allow the children access to a full picture of the long-running dispute between their mother and father.

The case concerned contact between the father and the boy, referred to as ‘T’ in the judgement, along with his older sister, ‘S’. T is now 15 and S 18. Both parents had made allegations about the other, with multiple court hearings taking place over more than a decade. Six previous judgements had been issued by the courts.

In the most recent hearing, Her Honour Mrs Justice Arbuthnot ruled that T should continue to see his father during school holidays until his 16th birthday in August 2024. The parties agreed that, like the previous judgements, this would be published in an anonymised form. This is the usual practice in cases involving children, in order to protect their anonymity.

But the lawyers for the father argued that the parents’ names should be added to the judgement when T turned 18. Judge Arbuthnot considered whether this should be done or if the judgement should remain anonymised, along with the additional possibility of adding the real names of T and S alongside those of their parents. Both children, along with their mother, were opposed.

Judge Arbuthnot noted:

“Looking carefully at the proceedings, the father has been misrepresented by the mother and it seems to me he has a right to put the record straight. The mother is trying to control the narrative with the children of the family. Currently the father can say nothing to set out what the courts have found or not found.”

She continued:

“A number of courts have found that the mother has influenced the children so that they do not wish to have contact with their father. The mother does not accept the judgments of the courts and I consider there is little, if any chance she will have told the children what the judgments say. If there is publication, the children will be able to read for themselves a summary of what the earlier judgments have said, my decisions and reasons and draw their own conclusions. They will be able to access a balanced account.”

The Judge stressed:

“It is in the public interest that the parties’ children are able to reach informed choices as to their contact with their parents, as they become adults. Publication with the naming of the parties will correct what I have little doubt is a false narrative given to the children by their mother.”

On the other hand, the children’s desire for privacy had to be given considerable weight. The possibility of identification in two years’ time could cause them anxiety and stress.

After careful consideration of the applicable legal principles, Judge Arbuthnot ruled that the parents’ names should indeed be added after T’s birthday, but that he and his sister would remain anonymous, identified only by initials, thereby decreasing the risk of the judgement surfacing via an internet search. Nevertheless, the addition of the parents’ names would expose T and S to the possibility of identification by people who knew the family, she acknowledged.

“I am conscious of the young people’s right to respect for their private lives… [but] the risk of wider identification, for example, by future employers and future social contacts, is far more remote and is less likely where T and S are not named.”

The Judge noted Article 8 of the European Convention Human Rights, which protects the right to privacy and family life:

“Overall, in balancing T, S and their mother’s rights to respect for their private lives, their wishes and feelings and their best interests, with the public interest in publishing a version of the judgment with the parents’ names, I conclude that the public interest in publication is strong and outweighs the Article 8 rights of the mother and the children…This is primarily because publication is consistent with their best interests, as T and S will gain full insight into the case, with which to make informed choices in the future. The impact on their right to respect for their private lives is relatively limited. In contrast, the public interest in publication identifying the parents is significant…”

Adam Moghadas, one of the partners here at Cambridge Family Law Practice, observes: “It is highly unusual for the court to include the names of the parties in a published order relating to children. Most often, the need to protect the privacy of those children outweighs any other reason in favour of making the parties’ names public. However, in this case, it would seem the judge carried out a careful balancing exercise and ultimately decided that the need for the children to better understand what had gone on between their parents within the proceedings was more significant than their privacy, which the judge felt was in part protected by not including their own names. Whilst any outcome for these children would seem inevitably to cause them difficulty in one way or another, it is perhaps reassuring to some parents out there who feel that the other parent has dictated a false narrative for their children, which has sadly impacted their relationship.”

Click here to read the full judgement.