A Local Authority v A Mother & Ors

As I am going to permit the Trust to be named, which is the issue in the case before me, I will refer to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust as “the Trust” throughout the judgment.

The Sunday Times have applied for a Transparency Order in accordance with the procedure now set out in PD12R. There are only two issues which are not agreed, one is whether the Trust should be named, and the other is whether one form of the treatment regime for the child can be referred to, namely the use of medical lines in their treatment. The position of the parties is that the mother, the father and the Children’s Guardian support the application, and agree that the Trust should be named. The Local Authority and the Trust both argue that the Trust should not be named.

I will give a very brief background to the application. A Sunday Times reporter, Ms Dugan, has already published three articles about what is suggested to be increasing allegations of fabricated or induced illness against parents in hospitals in England and the impact of those allegations on the families. She applied for a Transparency Order as part of her research and reporting on this topic. It is set out in her witness statement that the Sunday Times argues that there is a high level of legitimate public interest in reporting of this nature.

The law in this field is now very well travelled. I do not intend to set it out very extensively. There are two operative statutory provisions which restrict reporting, firstly Section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960:

“s12(1) The publication of information relating to proceedings before any court sitting in private shall not of itself be contempt of court except in the following cases, that is to say—