Kent County Council, Re B (A Child) v the Mother & Ors

Section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 protects the privacy of children proceedings. It prohibits dissemination of material from private hearings and court documents, even when anonymised, but does not prevent discussion of the nature of the dispute or the bare identification of witnesses and the party for whom they gave evidence.

In deciding whether to relax or supplement those restrictions, the court must identify the competing Convention rights and assess the proportionality of interference with each. A complaint to the General Medical Council will normally justify controlled disclosure of relevant papers, subject to stringent confidentiality and anonymity safeguards. Public discussion may be permitted where necessary to achieve a fair balance, while preserving effective protection for the child, carers and experts.

A mother, whose child was the subject of a final care order after findings that she had caused the child harm, alleged a miscarriage of justice and wished to publicise her case amid public concern about expert evidence in child-protection cases. She sought permission to disclose care-proceedings material to the General Medical Council and to put specified facts and an edited social-work letter into the public domain.

The local authority sought restraints following prior disclosures to politicians and journalists. The application required the court to determine the scope of confidentiality under section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960, the document-disclosure rule, and the balance between the mother’s rights to speak and the child’s privacy and welfare.

1. The application was granted in part. Munby J authorised controlled disclosure of specified documents to the General Medical Council. He also permitted publication of defined factual matters and an edited letter, but made a contra mundum injunction protecting the identity of the child, carers and medical experts.

2. Rule 4.23 of the Family Proceedings Rules 1991 applies only to documents actually filed with the court. It protects the documents, not their contents. A letter does not become subject to the rule merely because it is placed in a correspondence bundle or exhibited to a statement.

3. Under section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960, publication ordinarily has the broad meaning used in defamation law. Communications to journalists, politicians, Ministers, the General Medical Council and other public bodies are therefore publications. The limited exception is responsible communication between persons acting professionally in furtherance of child protection.

4. Section 12 permits discussion of the proceedings’ existence and nature, and bare identification of witnesses and the party for whom they gave evidence. It prohibits accounts of what occurred in the private hearing, court documents, evidence, submissions, judgments, and extracts or summaries of them. Anonymisation does not remove that prohibition. Section 97(2) of the Children Act 1989 separately protects the child from identification.

5. The court applied the proportionality exercise in Re S (Identification: Restrictions on Publication) [2003] EWCA Civ 963. It balanced the mother’s Articles 6, 8 and 10 interests, the child’s Articles 6 and 8 interests, media rights under Article 10, and the public interests in open debate, confidentiality and confidence in family justice.

6. Disclosure to the General Medical Council served a compelling public interest in proper professional discipline. It was not premature merely because an appeal remained pending. The disclosure was confined initially to identified material and made subject to safeguards preserving confidentiality, restricting onward disclosure and protecting anonymity.

7. The local authority had not established that naming it would identify the child. The balance differed for the experts: current public interest in preserving the supply of child-protection experts justified temporary anonymity. The court rejected prior-notice requirements for media publication as an unacceptable form of prior restraint. The parties could apply to vary the orders.

• High Court (Family Division): Bracewell J made threshold findings in the care proceedings in Re B (a Minor) [2003] EWHC 20 (Fam).

• High Court (Family Division): Holman J subsequently made a final care order on 12 September 2003.

• High Court (Family Division): This was a first-instance application concerning disclosure and publication restrictions. The mother’s separate application for permission to appeal the care findings remained awaiting judgment in the Court of Appeal.