LOUISE TICKLE v ANDREW JAMES GRIFFITHS

In deciding whether to publish a family judgment identifying the parents, the court must conduct an intensive, fact-specific balancing exercise between the competing rights under Articles 8 and 10 ECHR. Neither right has automatic precedence. A child’s best interests are a primary consideration, but they are not paramount and may be outweighed by the cumulative effect of other considerations.

The court should not assume that identification will harm a child. It must assess the child’s actual age, circumstances, likely exposure to publicity and the probable effect on family relationships. Open justice and political speech may carry substantial weight where publication concerns serious findings against a public office-holder and corrects a materially misleading public account.

Two journalists applied for publication of a fact-finding judgment concerning serious findings of domestic abuse against the Father, including coercive and controlling behaviour, sexual misconduct and rape. The central dispute was whether the judgment should identify the parents while preserving the anonymity of their child, X.

The Father supported publication only in anonymised form, relying principally on X’s Article 8 rights and the possible effect on X’s relationship with him. The Mother, the Guardian and the intervening organisation supported publication with the parents’ names. The court therefore had to determine the appropriate balance between the media’s and the Mother’s Article 8 and 10 rights, the public interest in open justice, and X’s privacy and welfare.

1. Applicable approach. The court applied the ultimate balancing exercise described in Re S (A Child) [2004] UKHL 47. Articles 8 and 10 have no automatic precedence. The court must intensely examine the specific rights claimed, the justification for restricting each right and the proportionality of the proposed interference. The principles concerning a child’s best interests in FZ (Congo) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] 1 WLR 3690 were compatible with that approach. X’s best interests were a primary consideration, but not paramount.
2. Article 10 and open justice. There was a substantial public interest in publication, including identification of the parents. The Father had been an MP and Government Minister, and the findings concerned conduct relevant to public debate about domestic abuse and the conduct of elected representatives. The media also had a legitimate interest in correcting the materially inconsistent public account that the Father’s 2018 sexting was an isolated consequence of a mental health crisis. The reasoning in Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers [2004] 2 AC 457 supported that conclusion.
3. Assessment of harm. The court rejected any assumption that identifying X would necessarily harm him, consistent with Clayton v Clayton [2006] 3 WLR 599 and Weller v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 1176. The assessment had to be objective and fact-specific. X was three years old, had no access to social media and was likely to be protected from immediate publicity. The effect on his relationship with the Father was principally a consequence of the Father’s conduct and the findings, rather than publication itself.
4. Mother’s rights. The Mother’s Article 8 autonomy and Article 10 freedom of expression included an important interest in communicating her own experience. The court also cautioned that anonymity protections should not be used as a means by which one parent exercises further control over another, particularly after findings of coercive control.
5. Disposition. The judgment was ordered to be published with the Mother’s and Father’s names, while retaining the redactions proposed by the Applicants and supported by the Mother and the Guardian.