Griffiths v Tickle & Ors

DAME VICTORIA SHARP, P:

This is an appeal against a decision of the High Court that a fact-finding judgment in proceedings under the Children Act 1989 (“the Children Act”) should be published with the names of the father and the mother included, and only relatively modest redactions, primarily aimed at mitigating the impact of publication on the couple’s infant child. The appellant is the father, against whom findings were made. He accepts that the judgment can be published but contends that the interests of the child make it necessary that he, the mother, and the child should all be anonymised and that there should be additional redaction of some details.

This is the judgment of the court.

The proceedings so far: an outline

The judgment at issue was delivered by HHJ Williscroft on 26 November 2020, in the Family Court at Derby, in the course of proceedings initiated by the father. He was seeking orders under s 8 of the Children Act to allow him to spend time with the child. His application was resisted by the mother. The Judge held a fact-finding hearing at which she considered evidence in the form of documents, photographs and a video recording, and heard the mother and father give oral evidence. In the judgment, which runs to some 10,000 words, the Judge made findings of domestic abuse against the father which we will summarise later. The father has not sought to appeal against those findings. The hearing and the judgment were in private, but open to accredited media representatives, as is the norm for proceedings of this kind under Rule 27.11(2)(f) of the Family Procedure Rules (“FPR”).

No media representative did attend, but in February 2021 two reporters, Louise Tickle and Brian Farmer, each applied for an order authorising the publication of the judgment. The applications were heard in the High Court by Lieven J, on 13 and 14 July 2021. They were supported by the mother. The applications were also, eventually, supported by the Guardian appointed to represent the interests of the child. The organisation Rights of Women (“RoW”) was given permission to intervene. It also supported the reporters’ applications.

The father resisted the applications. His final position was that he did not oppose publication of the factual content of the judgment as such. But he opposed the inclusion of any matter that would lead to the identification of him, the mother, or the child. He said they should all be anonymised. He also opposed publication of some of the de