Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust v PP (through her Children’s Guardian) & Anor.

Anonymisation is a departure from the ordinary principle of open justice. The identity of a professional involved in family proceedings should be withheld only where unusual or exceptional circumstances justify that departure. The court must intensely focus on the competing rights, apply proportionality, and satisfy the statutory test that non-disclosure is necessary for the proper administration of justice and to protect the person’s interests.

Where the special reason is relied on, the court must assess whether naming the professional would materially increase the risk of identifying the child. Routine anonymisation of professionals, or an automatic entitlement to anonymised judgments in financial remedy proceedings, is impermissible. Anonymity requires a compelling and strictly necessary justification, such as a high probability of serious physical or psychological harm or a risk to the future prevention of crime.

PA Media applied to vary a reporting restriction order made in proceedings concerning a 15-year-old child, PP. The original proceedings authorised serious medical treatment and associated deprivation of liberty under the inherent jurisdiction. The order restricted publication of information that might identify PP or her mother, while permitting limited reporting.

Following the child’s birth, PA Media sought permission to identify the NHS trust and the local authority involved, relying on open justice, local democracy and public accountability. The Guardian and local authority opposed identification of the local authority, principally because of the risk of jigsaw identification and consequent harm to PP and the child-protection and care proceedings concerning her baby. The central issue was the extent to which the reporting restrictions should be relaxed while preserving PP’s anonymity.

1. Application partly granted. The trust could be named. PP could be identified as a 15-year-old teenage girl below the age of consent, and specified information about her pregnancy, birth, brain injury and social-services involvement could be reported. The local authority could be described only as a local authority in West Yorkshire. Any application to name it, or to report what had happened to the baby, was to be made in the concurrent care proceedings before the Family Court at Leeds.
2. The starting point was the ordinary rule of open justice. That rule is strong and can be displaced only in unusual or exceptional circumstances. The court must intensely focus on the comparative importance of the rights engaged, examine the justification for restricting each right, and apply proportionality, as explained in Re S and A v British Broadcasting Corporation.
3. CPR 39.2(4) states the formal test: non-disclosure must be necessary both to secure the proper administration of justice and to protect the interests of the person concerned. Although the Family Procedure Rules do not expressly apply that test to every type of family proceeding, it should be treated as applicable whenever anonymisation is sought.
4. Where professionals are proposed to be anonymised to protect a child, the court must assess whether naming them would materially increase the risk of identifying the child. This “special reason” is distinct from the ordinary balancing exercise. Professionals may be anonymised as a group where the facts of the particular case justify it, but there is no generic entitlement to anonymity.
5. The recognised cases demonstrate a demanding threshold. Ordinarily, anonymity requires either a high probability of really serious physical or psychological harm if identity is disclosed, or a risk that future crime prevention would be compromised. Financial remedy litigants have no automatic entitlement to anonymised judgments. Such orders significantly derogate from open justice and require a compelling justification and strict necessity.
6. On the facts, naming the trust would not materially increase the risk of identifying PP. Naming the local authority would likewise add little or no identification risk, but it was inappropriate to determine that issue without the participation of the baby’s father and guardian in the care proceedings where the local authority was the applicant.

First-instance application to vary a reporting restriction order. No appellate history was stated in the judgment.