P, Re

In determining a reporting restriction application, the court must balance the competing interests in publicity and privacy. The child’s anonymity should be preserved where identification, or identification of current carers, creates a serious risk of disturbance to the child’s placement and significant adverse consequences. A parent should be restrained from speaking publicly only with great caution. The court may therefore permit the parent to identify herself, including by maiden name and photograph, while prohibiting publication identifying the child or the child’s carers. An order protecting the child may continue until the child reaches 18, subject to ending earlier if the child returns to the mother’s care.

This was the return day of an application for a reporting restriction order. The application had previously been considered by Mr Justice Charles on 4 December 2013, following extensive media publicity concerning the child, the mother and the family proceedings.

The central issues were whether the child and her current carers should remain anonymised, and whether the mother should be permitted to identify herself and speak publicly about the courts’ handling of her and her daughter.

1. The court made a reporting restriction order in terms discussed during the hearing.
2. The arguments for continuing the child’s anonymisation were overwhelming. Identification of the child or her current carers would create a serious risk of disturbing the child’s current placement, with potentially very significant short- and long-term adverse consequences.
3. The balancing exercise required by the case-law therefore strongly favoured protecting the child’s identity and privacy. The arguments for naming the child were exiguous and, in any event, heavily outweighed.
4. Different considerations applied to the mother. The court should be very slow to prevent a parent from publicly complaining about the way in which the courts had handled her and her daughter. The mother could therefore continue to tell her story publicly and could do so using her maiden name and, if she wished, by allowing publication of her photograph.
5. The mother’s married surname was prohibited because the child was known by that surname and publication could risk identifying the child. The order preventing identification of the child and the child’s carers would in principle continue until the child’s 18th birthday, but would end earlier if the child were restored to the mother’s care.