B e f o r e :
MR JUSTICE MUNBY ____________________
____________________
No hearing : matter dealt with on paper ____________________
HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT ____________________
Crown Copyright ©
Mr Justice Munby :
On 16 August 2004, at the end of care proceedings brought by a local authority in respect of the B children, I handed down a written judgment which I entitled In the Matter of the B children, X Council v B and others [2004] EWHC 2015 (Fam) . The judgment bore the following rubric on the front sheet:
The judgment was subsequently reported as X Council v B (Emergency Protection Orders) [2004] EWHC 2015 (Fam) , [2005] 1 FLR 341 . At that stage neither the family nor the local authority had been publicly identified.
As set out in that judgment the proceedings related to three children: D, who was born on 19 November 1987, J, born on 20 April 1992, and W, born on 1 February 1998. They had an older sister, N, born on 18 February 1985.
On 6 March 2007 the children's mother, who I will refer to as Mrs B, wrote to me. Her purpose was to seek permission to identify the local authority which had brought the care proceedings. Having consulted the local authority and obtained its views, I indicated that I was prepared to rule on the matter without requiring Mrs B to make any formal application.
In the event on 6 July 2007 I made an order permitting the local authority to be identified (see Re B Children, X Council v B and others [2007] EWHC 1622 (Fam) at para [21]):
I made it clear in my judgment (see Re B Children, X Council v B and others [2007] EWHC 1622 (Fam) at para [10]) that the only matter raised by Mrs B and the only matter on which I was ruling was the question of whether the local authority's name should continue to be anonymised: "I make no ruling and express no views whatever on any other matter."
That judgment was handed down on 6 July 2007. Shortly afterwards I received letters dated 27 July 2007 from two of the B children, J and W. The relevant part of J's letter read as follows:
The relevant part of W's letter read:
More recently I have received e-mails from Mrs B culminating in an e-mail dated 8 January 2008 in which she says:
I read this correspondence as being a request by Mrs B and by J and W for permission to identify themselves publicly as being the family (hitherto referred to only as the B family) and as being two of the children (hitherto referred to only as J and W) involved in the care proceedings.
I am prepared to deal with the matter without requiring a formal application.
I do not propose to analyse the law in any great detail. It suffices for present purposes to note that:
i) There has never been any injunction in this case prohibiting reporting or discussion of the case. As I said in my previous judgment ( Re B Children, X Council v B and others [2007] EWHC 1622 (Fam) at para [11]):
ii) The care proceedings in relation to the B children have long since come to an end. Accordingly, the restrictions imposed by section 97(2) of the Children Act 1989 no longer operate: Clayton v Clayton [2006] EWCA Civ 878 , [2006] Fam 83 .
iii) The only relevant statutory restrictions which continue to apply are those imposed by section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960.
iv) Section 12 does not prevent publication of the names of the parties or the names of the children: Re B (A Child) (Disclosure) [2004] EWHC 411 (Fam) , [2004] 2 FLR 142 . Nor does section 12 prohibit discussion, within certain bounds, of the nature of the dispute in the proceedings.
v) What section 12 does prevent, unless the judge otherwise directs, is the publication of accounts of what has gone on in front of the judge sitting in private, publication of documents (or extracts or quotations from documents) such as affidavits, witness statements, reports, position statements, skeleton arguments or other documents filed in the proceedings, and publication of transcripts or notes of the evidence or submissions, and transcripts or notes of the judgment: see Re Webster, Norfolk County Council v Webster and others [2006] EWHC 2733 (Fam) , [2007] 1 FLR 1146 , at para [49].
In the present case, of course, I gave permission for my judgment to be published, but only in anonymised form and subject to the rubric set out in paragraph [1] above. That said, and as I commented in my earlier judgment ( Re B Children, X Council v B and others [2007] EWHC 1622 (Fam) at para [11]):
So far as the rubric is concerned I propose to adopt for present purposes the same approach as on the previous occasion ( Re B Children, X Council v B and others [2007] EWHC 1622 (Fam) at para [12]):
The position, therefore, as a matter of law is this: There is nothing to prevent Mrs B or J or W identifying themselves in public as people involved in the care proceedings brought by Blackpool Council or, subject to compliance with section 12, discussing in public the nature of the dispute in the proceedings. Nor is there anything to prevent Mrs B or J or W making whatever use they wish of my judgment in the anonymous form in which I gave leave for it to be reported . But what, on this view of the rubric, they cannot do – and what of course they want to do – is to link themselves with the judgment; to say that the Mrs B referred to in my judgment is in fact Mrs Brown and that the J and W referred to in the judgment are in fact James and Wilfred Brown (I use pseudonyms to illustrate the point, these are not in fact their true names).
The question, therefore, is whether I should further amend the rubric on the cover sheet of the judgment to permit Mrs B, J and W, if they so wish, to identify themselves as the persons referred to under those initials in the judgment.
In my judgment, this is something I should do.
In coming to this conclusion there are two important principles that I have particularly had in mind.
In the first place, the State is no longer involved with the B family. The care proceedings came to an end without my making any order. The local authority does not have parental responsibility for either J or W. J and W are not wards of court. The only persons with parental responsibility for them are Mr and Mrs B. Insofar as the decision whether a teenager should speak in public or talk to the media involves an exercise of parental responsibility then it is for Mr and Mrs B to exercise that responsibility, not the court or any other public authority. There are no grounds for any interference by the State – whether the State in the guise of the local authority or the State in the form of the High Court – with the exercise by Mr and Mrs B of their parental responsibility. No-one has made any application for a specific issue order. Mr and Mrs B have not sought the assistance of the court in the exercise of their parental responsibility. The only application before the court is for those affected to be freed from the anonymity which was imposed by the rubric.
The other important matter is this. J is now almost 16 years old, though W is still only 10. So far as J is concerned, therefore, he is of an age when he should be free to decide for himself whether these are matters he wishes to talk about in public: see the discussion in Re Roddy (A Child) (Identification: Restriction on Publication) [2003] EWHC 2927 , [2004] 2 FLR 949 . As I said in that case at para [83]:
Accordingly I have today made an order in the following terms:
There are four observations I should make in conclusion:
i) This application, unlike its predecessor, does not concern the local authority, so I have dealt with it without consulting the local authority.
ii) The application has been made by Mrs B, J and W. There has been no application by or on behalf of either D or N. In accordance with the terms of my order, Mrs B, J and W may publicise their names, including their surname. To that extent, D and N may indirectly be identified, and I have taken that into account in coming to my decision. But nothing I have said authorises the publication in this connection of D and N's first names without their permission.
iii) Nothing I have said authorises the publication of the names of any of the professionals or other people involved in the proceedings. Mrs B's e-mail makes clear, as she says, that "there will be no professionals named". If I am to be asked to make an order permitting any of the other people involved in the proceedings to be named, there will have to be a proper application and those affected will have to be given an opportunity to express their views.
iv) I have considered only the question of whether Mrs B, J and W should be permitted to identify themselves in public as persons involved in these proceedings. Consistently with the approach I have adopted, I have not considered the wisdom of their doing so. That in the case of Mrs B and J is a matter for them; in the case of W a matter for his parents. It is not, for the reasons I have sought to explain, a matter for the court. It is not for me to express any views on the subject, let alone to give advice. I confine myself to two observations which, no doubt, all those involved will bear in mind: