Accuracy matters. Lawyers are supposed to be precise. Contempt of court is serious.

It therefore drives me bananas when I see the following at the top of a Children Act order:

“The names of the family and the children are not to be disclosed in public without the court’s permission.”

Really?

Really??

Is this what we actually mean to say?

• That a child who wins a bravery award or a swimming gala or who rescues a cat from up a tree can’t be named as a jolly good fellow in their local newspaper just because they happen also to be involved in proceedings?
• Or a parent cannot post a picture of their child blowing out their birthday candles with the caption ‘Happy Birthday to my lovely son Joe Smith’ just because they happen also to be involved in proceedings?
• That a mother cannot publish anything in her own name about any topic at all (say, her new haircut, job or her views on the current Prime Minister) just because she happens also to be involved in proceedings?

Clearly that is NOT what we mean (And if it is what we mean we should give our collective heads a wobble – there might be a very small minority of cases where for fact specific reasons there ought not to be any publication of any information identifying parents or child even if it does not refer to the existence of proceedings, but most certainly not in many or most cases). Yet it IS what almost every order in such proceedings says. Copy. Paste. Repeat.

What we actually mean (I suggest) is :

“The names of the family and the children are not to be disclosed in public in connection with these proceedings without the court’s permission.”

#Amirite?

i.e. headline ‘Little Johnny Rotten, subject of a nasty custody battle by the way, bravely rescued Jess the Cat from up a tree in Pontypandy’ = NOT OK.

or Facebook post ‘Happy Birthday to my lovely son Rex. Shame your dad is taking me to court for more contact’ = ALSO NOT OK.

This does matter. We are threatening to send people to prison for doing things we didn’t really mean to stop them doing, and which frankly, we cannot possibly justify prohibiting. Remember all the hoo hah about amending the rules specifically so people could share information with their MP? (no, you are probably all too young…). These orders in effect say they can’t.

Anyway, I assume that the purpose or intention of this standard wording is to capture the essence of s97 Children Act 1989 (which makes publication of information likely to identify a child as the subject of Children Act proceedings a criminal offence), and to render it also a contempt so that it can in theory be enforceable by the Family Court (it ISN’T actually a contempt of court UNLESS specifically prohibited to identify a child as the subject of proceedings, even if it is a criminal offence).

Similarly, with various iterations of ‘social media’ warnings that have begun appearing on orders since the pandemic. When the pandemic hit and the Coronavirus Act made it a criminal offence to record remote hearings, these warnings suddenly sprang up in various mutated, ever more expansive forms – delivered both at the hearing and rehearsed in various guises in the orders which followed, threatening prison, fines, criminal sanctions, deportation to the colonies, beheading* for all sorts of transgressions. Over time, the drafting dragged in more and more stuff that was said or assumed to fall under one or other provision (whether the new covid laws or those which predated them. Cue *vague flabby arm wave in the direction of unspecified ‘privacy rules’*. The Coronavirus warnings themselves have died down, but the residue left behind is often a blanket prohibition on disclosure of anything about proceedings to any person ever, especially via ‘social media’ *sucks teeth*.

This is not and has never been the law, before or after the Coronavirus Act. The Family Procedure Rules set out a long list of people to whom documents CAN lawfully be disclosed, often for particular purposes, and with restrictions on onward disclosure. The warnings COMPLETELY ignore and contradict the rules.

Also, what is notably missing from these warnings is that you shouldn’t be publishing or sharing information about what is SAID in hearings (on social media or otherwise, except where the rules permit etc etc). The exclusive focus in these warnings on documents is an incomplete summary of the law (if that is what the warnings are trying to do) which is potentially misleading.

This makes my teeth itch.

I do try to remember to correct these whenever I a) remember and b) have the energy. As you may imagine, this makes me the most favourite person in the interminable post-hearing email thread. Now, I have finally remembered to save my improved wording in a location where I can readily access it, and it struck me it wouldn’t hurt to make it available to others.

So, please find attached and below, herewith my suggested wording. Perhaps there are other versions that I’ve not seen that do this job perfectly well already. No doubt my draft could be improved upon. Obviously, no liability is accepted for error etc, but if nothing else I will have roused a couple of people from their torpor for long enough to say ‘Oh, I’d never thought about that’.

Yours pedantically,

 

 

*alright, not deportation or beheading

 

Suggested alternative privacy warnings

NB underlining is to highlight the bits I’ve added in to the warnings I most often see floating around in orders.

Confidentiality warning

The names of the family and the children are not to be disclosed in public in connection with these proceedings without the court’s permission.

 

Social media

The case papers are not to be disclosed, shown or sent to any other person other than a party’s legal advisers, whether physically or through any social media or other electronic medium, save as permitted by Family Procedure Rules 12.73 or 12.75 or PracticeDirection12G.

Save as permitted by Family Procedure Rules 12.73 or 12.75 or Practice Direction 12G it is a contempt of court to disclose, show or send to any other person through social media any of the case papers, or to otherwise disclose information relating to the proceedings, which may be punishable by imprisonment.

[update – small typo corrected – linked file also corrected]