Caesar’s wife and care proceedings

This is a post about a case that has recently been before Theis J, and has been reported on by the Guardian and the Observer.

https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/child-abuse-is-never-above-the-law-not-even-if-youre-a-family-court-judge

As you can see from the headline – it involves a set of care proceedings in which the parents (I have to remind myself not to use mother and father, as both parents have asked that their pronouns be they/their) had jobs which raise additional sensitivity. X is a primary school teacher. Y is a family law barrister who also sits as a Deputy District Judge – including making decisions in care proceedings.

A LA v X & Y and Ors (No 4: Welfare and Reporting of Judgments) [2025] EWFC 126 (09 May 2025)
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2025/126.html

This is a summary of the findings made against them :-

At the heart of this case are children who the court has determined have been the subject of significant harm caused by their parents over an extended period of time which included a punishing regime of care for the children conducted by X that included refusing food to the children, leaving the children at home overnight, controlling behaviour, abusive (including racist) language, shouting and swearing, throwing objects, inappropriate punishment (such as standing against a wall, being isolated in bedrooms or outside for long periods, confiscation of spectacles, pushing soap into a child’s mouth, throwing a child into a water trough) and physical assaults (including hitting with objects, smacking, restriction of the neck, dragging and hitting heads together).  Y was aware of X’s behaviour and failed to protect the children.

I think most people would agree that if they knew that X was teaching their children they wouldn’t be happy about that, and that if they found themselves in care proceedings they wouldn’t want Y to be a barrister in the case and even less would they want Y to be the Judge.

Theis J made orders that the respective professional bodies for X and Y should be provided with the judgment and both X and Y are saying that they will leave those professions.

The Press, very understandably here, consider there to be a public interest in identifying X and Y, given those findings and the nature of the work both undertake.

The two children involved are 10 and 15, and their views about identification were sought. The obvious problem is that in identifying the parents, one also identifies to anyone who knows the children who those children are. And if the Press report the case, that information about the children, easily linked to them, stays around on the internet (or whatever ghastliness replaces it in 25-50 years) forever.

That’s the reason why generally, Courts do not name parents who are involved in care proceedings – there are some very rare exceptions. The former President of the Family Division took the unusual step of naming a mother in family law proceedings whom he found to have made and continued to circulate false and very serious allegations against the father so that the father could be publicly exonerated. Sometimes it happens where there are well-publicised criminal proceedings. Sometimes it emerges when the parent has been committed to prison for contempt of court, where the rules are that the person being committed HAS to be named. There was a case in the last few years where the Court identified a sitting MP as having been the subject of very serious findings of domestic abuse as being in the public interest (I can’t recall if there were children in that case though)

(To pick a lane really quickly – I do think that just as Caesar’s wife has to be beyond reproach, a Judge who sat or sits in family court cases who is the subject of these findings crosses a different Rubicon to most of the parents who come before the family court. It is, in my mind, a different scenario, and there’s a public interest in naming Y for that reason. It is hard to work out a way to do it without adversely affecting the children who have already suffered so much)

Following her discussions with B and C in early January 2025, the Guardian reports they said they knew that their parents were upset with them telling people about their experiences. In her January 2025 report the Guardian stated ‘All the children want is for their parents to say ‘sorry’. Unless there is an admission of fault from the parents to the children, I do not feel that there will ever be repairs to their relationships’. She reports the children want to be able to say what happened to them. In that report the Guardian stated ‘I have taken into account the fact that the children’s right to family life has already been restricted as a result of these proceedings both due to the parents’ insistence that [B] and [C] did not see their [sibling A] for nearly five months and the fact that both parents and other family members (including all four grandparents) have chosen not to have any contact with them…This has caused the children distress, and they are still in the process of recovery from the separation and the impact of the proceedings’. In her analysis she sets out her concern that the parents will continue to try and manipulate the narrative that the children have not told the truth, that the only account in the public domain is an inaccurate and misleading one and a published judgment with the parents being named would give them concrete information about what happened to them. Having balanced the relevant considerations she came down in favour of the parents being identified in the judgment as she considered ‘by ongoing secrecy and silence [B] and [C] will not be able to defend themselves against the parents’ clear plans to revile and malign them publicly and privately. The parents’ view is clear in this sentence [in the December e-mail], ‘the family court has a skewed view of the evidence and values children’s accounts above anything else’. The report notes the parents had purchased gift tokens for the children at Christmas and sent a card that had been given to them.

In a very long and considered judgment, Theis J came to the decision that the parents should not be named (not without hesitation)

Balancing each of these competing rights and considerations in this very unusual and complex set of circumstances I have, not without some considerable hesitation, reached the conclusion that the parents should not be identified by name in these proceedings for the following reasons.

(1) I recognise the Article 10 consideration are compelling due to the nature of the roles held by both parents and the serious nature of the findings of abuse and failure to protect made by this court in relation to both parents. I reject any suggestion of this being a slippery slope as each case has to be considered on its own particular facts. The significance of the roles held by each parent in this case and the way they previously portrayed their family life in the public domain adds weight to this consideration. This is compounded by the fact that not all information relating to the parents has been removed from the public domain and in relation to Y there has been a recent public statement by their regulatory body.

(2) I have carefully considered whether the public interest could be met by the reporting of their respective roles without their names. I am clear that X should be referred to as a primary school teacher and Y should be referred to as a barrister specialising in children cases who sat as a Deputy District Judge authorised to hear private law cases. That meets the public interest in the public knowing that the parents hold positions of professional responsibility in respect of children and were adoptive parents of a number of children. I acknowledge it risks leading to speculation in their respective professional fields of work and to them being identified by those who know them, which would itself give rise to a legitimate public interest argument in knowing who they are and the submission on behalf of the press regarding a name, relying on Re Guardian News and Media Ltd [2010] AC 697 [63], but that needs to be factored into the wider balancing exercise.

(3) Whilst the parents have not sought to rely on their Article 10 rights they have threatened to speak out about what they regard as the injustice in this case and the failings of the family court against which they make very serious allegations. Whilst the court acknowledges that they have recently said they don’t intend to speak about that they have not withdrawn the very serious allegations they make in the December 2024 email and there is the thinly veiled undercurrent to their position that it is contingent on them remaining anonymised. There is a public interest in the workings of the family court being transparent in the widest sense and the publication of these judgments will assist in that as will the details of the way the parents have conducted these difficult proceedings to the detriment of the children.

(4) Unlike in cases such as Griffiths the parents do rely on their Article 8 rights. Their evidence about their mental ill health and the impact on that and them more generally if they are identified is, if course, taken very seriously and has been factored in by the Guardian in the balancing exercise she undertook. However, whilst according it careful consideration it needs to be viewed in the context of a lack of any independent evidence, the evidence the court has is entirely self-reporting. No Part 25 FPR 2010 application has been made by the parents or on their behalf to secure such independent evidence, even though it has been known for some time this is an issue raised by the other parties. The court cannot ignore that whilst the parents have been distressed, as Y was during this hearing, and have had to manage wider family ill health, they have continued to actively and effectively engage in these proceedings, sell their home, move area and are now making proposals about contact. So, whilst the risks to the parents’ mental health can’t be discounted it has to be seen in this context and, in my judgment, should not be given significant weight in the balancing exercise.

(5) The parents’ conduct in these proceedings has cast a long shadow over this case and has been very harmful to the children. When it suits them the parents present themselves as victims, yet have then displayed behaviour that demonstrates their position and way of operating has barely changed and shows they can behave in an aggressive and threatening way, similar to the behaviour described by the children. From the children’s perspective the December 2024 email was a harmful document. It made serious allegations against the professionals who have provided the children with consistent and vital support at a time when the children had been wholly let down by their parents, not only through the abuse when they were in the care of their parents but through the effective abandonment of them by their parents from January 2024 when they described their experience of being cared for by the parents. The parents operate a divide and rule approach to parenting in which there is no middle ground. The tone and content of the statement from E, the way they referred to A as a ‘disease’ and the way they have ostracised D following him recently contacting the police to corroborate the abuse from their parents the children have described are examples. It is a deeply damaging way of parenting their own children. This is especially so bearing in mind the child focussed professional roles held by each parent and the way they have presented their family life.

(6) The parents’ repeated complaints about how they have been treated in these proceedings lack any balance or foundation. They have had every opportunity to participate effectively in these proceedings through, for example, extensions of time being granted, remote attendance by them at hearings and applications being determined without delay. They each had the benefit of separate experienced legal teams consisting of specialist solicitors and leading and junior counsel until they dispensed with their services hours before the December judgment was going to be handed down. By not attending the December hearing they caused further delay and the content of the December 2024 email resulted in very difficult discussions having to take place with the children about the impact of that email, the contents of which have still not been withdrawn by the parents but is asked to be seen in the context of the distress the parents were suffering at the time. In their January 2025 position statement they blame the professionals for not asking them about the email, once again avoiding responsibility for their actions. Following the withdrawal of their previous legal team the court has taken every opportunity to encourage the parents to seek further legal representations which they did in March.

(7) The children’s Article 10 rights are engaged to the extent the evidence demonstrates that having some wider validation of the court’s conclusion about their accounts of the parent’s behaviour will enable them to have a voice and not feel silenced as the local authority consider they feel they have been. This can be achieved for the children by the disclosure of the judgment to identified individuals who are important to them, are not limited to those chosen or selected by the parents but are those who the Guardian and local authority also consider are important.

(8) One of the most troubling aspects of this case is the children’s Article 8 rights and how they should be factored in. As the cases have made clear their welfare is important, but not paramount. The children are currently placed with their fourth foster carer, B has recently had to leave the placement for a short period but is back there with C and the stability of that placement is under active assessment. A and D are not living with them. The two recent reports by the Guardian capture the difficult analysis of their welfare needs and demonstrate why she is better placed than the parents to provide that analysis, as the parents can only view it through the lens of their own interests. The Guardian recognises that in most cases the interest of the children who have been the subject of abuse are best protected by them and that information remaining confidential. However, in this case there are welfare arguments in favour of the parents being identified. The Guardian considers that it could help provide them with some validation and balance to the repeated claims by the parents that the children have not told the truth. That benefit needs to be balanced with the consequences for the children of the parents being identified and detailed information about their lives being in the public domain at the time when they are still coming to terms with their current circumstances, their varying wishes to have contact with the parents and the wider family, the stability of their placement, navigating their relationships with their siblings and their own longer term futures. These important welfare needs are likely to be better met if this was done with their circumstances, and their parents not being identified. It would enable any steps to be taken to re-connect with their parents and/or the wider family in more private circumstances, but, importantly, with those key people being made fully aware of the findings made by the court. This is more likely to meet the children’s welfare needs without having to deal, in addition, with the added complication and pressures of their parents being identified. I fully recognise the risks that the recent steps taken by the parents to initiate contact with the children may be strategic. That would not be inconsistent with their litigation conduct to date. However, from the children’s welfare perspective they should have the opportunity for that to take place and have their wider more immediate welfare needs met and prioritised.

(9) In weighing this in the balance, I have to recognise that there is a real risk that the parents may be identified following the conclusion of any regulatory process which may result in the delicate balance in these proceedings falling in favour of the parents being identified. The local authority have undertaken to take any steps needed in relation to that issue. I recognise that this may not bring the finality that the children sought but it is a reality of their position that needs to be weighed in the balance. If such circumstances arose it would, in my judgment, be at a time when the children would be older, have had the opportunity to receive the specialist support they need away from the glare of any inevitable publicity and the intensity and pressure of these proceedings. In addition, it would be in the context of any conclusions reached regarding the regulatory process. The children’s primary welfare need now is to secure the stability of their placements, relationships with each other, their siblings, parents and wider family with those individuals being informed of the outcome of these proceedings and furnished with a copy of the judgments. These important welfare considerations would be supported by the experience and consistency of the current social work team who are known to and know each of the children. In my judgment each of those important welfare needs could be put at risk if the parents were identified, as the resulting publicity would detract from that specialist support in those critical areas of their welfare being available. Such publicity also avoids the risks for the children of others who they don’t know knowing about them before they have the chance to develop relationships in education, employment or with friends. As the Guardian put it that would be yet another extra hurdle their peers don’t have.

(10) The balancing exercise in this case is exquisitely poised and there are compelling and powerful factors on each side of the scales. There is no right answer but whilst the public interest considerations are strong in this case they are not at any welfare cost to these particular children whose interests, bearing in mind their particular vulnerability, are important.

(11) Therefore, having undertaken that careful balancing exercise between the competing rights that are engaged I am satisfied that the interference in the Article 10 rights is justified and proportionate in the particular and unusual circumstances of this case by the Article 8 rights of these children through the prism of their welfare needs.

(12) This carefully calibrated analysis is about the very difficult balance that needs to be struck, which fully engages with the very important public interest considerations outlined above and also the welfare needs of these particular children and their particular circumstances, which this court needs to carefully weigh in the balance. This case demonstrates the very difficult decisions the family court has to make and how it undertakes them.

There is no simple solution. It should be made clear to the children this is the court’s decision. The children bear no responsibility for it. The court has listened very carefully to what they have each said and taken that into account in considering their wider welfare needs. Each of the children, including A and D, have shown remarkable courage in managing the situation they have found themselves in. Having made the decision I have the focus now must be on each child’s welfare needs, away from the spotlight of the court.

The parents then made applications to amend the Transparency Order that had been made, seeking to add to it that the Press should not be allowed to say that X had stood as a candidate for the Reform party and had stood three times for local and national elections. Theis J ruled against them on that.

A Local Authority v X & Ors (No. 5: Transparency Order) [2025] EWFC 140 (20 May 2025)
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2025/140.html

I suspect that the Press may want to appeal the decision not to name the parents – but it is to my mind a more difficult LEGAL appeal than the appeal from Williams J in the Sara Shariff case. Firstly, the Judge here had a very clear counter argument that identifying the parents would also identify the children and the impact on them, secondly it is a decision that goes along with the grain of current thinking rather than against it, and finally it is a judgment that more obviously grapples with both sides of the argument and does not to my mind open the door to an appeal based on perception of bias.

I would on a human and visceral level want X and Y to be named. I obviously don’t know the details of their childhood and their lives and struggles but on the face of it they have much more advantages than the majority of the parents who find themselves before the Family Court and as far as Y is concerned would have been extremely aware of the nature and issues of child abuse and exactly how corrosive this behaviour towards the children would have been and how to go about seeking help and their responsibility to act protectively no matter what their affinity and feelings for X.

But legally, more tricky.