F v Cumbria County Council & Anor (No 6) (Publicity)

In publicity decisions concerning family proceedings, the court must balance the public interest in openness against the welfare and privacy of vulnerable children and the legitimate interests of adults. Where circumstances have previously justified confidentiality but those barriers have weakened, the court may permit substantial publication while preserving confidential material and reporting restrictions.

Daily reporting may be permitted where it advances the public interest in informed reporting and the asserted additional harm to children is unsupported or insufficiently specific. The court should recognise that restricting daily reporting may not prevent continuing media coverage. A hearing should remain private where sitting in public would expose information that the court cannot adequately protect.

The proceedings concerned publicity arising from the death of a child and a forthcoming further fact-finding hearing. The court had previously given a fact-finding judgment, but its findings had not been published. The issues included the timing and extent of publication, continuation of reporting restrictions, media attendance, whether the hearing should be public, daily reporting, and disclosure of documents to attending journalists.

The court also considered further submissions from the Children’s Guardian concerning possible emotional harm to the surviving children and the publication of medical evidence. A fresh inquest had been ordered by the Divisional Court in [2015] EWHC 2465 (Admin). The central issue was how far openness and contemporaneous reporting should be permitted while protecting the children and confidential information.

1. Publication and restrictions. The court ordered publication of the narrative, investigative history and medical evidence from the earlier judgment, while withholding the earlier findings until judgment after the further hearing. Existing restrictions preventing identification of the mother and surviving children remained in force.
2. Balancing exercise. The court balanced the extremely strong public interest in information about the death and its investigation against the welfare of vulnerable children, the interests of other family members, and the impact on the father. The absence of any criminal charge or conviction was also relevant.
3. Media attendance and reporting. Accredited media representatives could attend the further hearing, but the hearing would not be held in public because the court could not otherwise protect information that was to remain confidential. Daily reporting was nevertheless permitted, subject to restrictions preventing publication of the earlier findings before the final judgment and preserving the court’s power to give further directions.
4. The court rejected the argument that withholding daily reporting would enable publicity to be controlled in an orderly way. The media could pursue the story by other means, and the asserted additional harm to the children had not been established by reference to the likely material or degree of harm. The children’s long-term interest in a just resolution commanding public confidence also supported openness.
5. The court declined further editing of the judgment to remove medical evidence. That evidence was central to the case, and omitting it would make publication of the narrative artificial and illogical. The outcome announced on 6 November was affirmed.