Deka Chambers Instructed in High Profile Child Protection Proceedings Involving Threshold, Privacy and Publication Issues

On 21 May 2025, Mrs Justice Theis handed down a series of judgments, decided over several months from July 2024 to May 2025, in care proceedings concerning siblings who were the subject of physical and emotional abuse perpetrated by their parents. One parent was a primary school teacher and the other parent was a barrister, specialising in children law, who also sat as a Deputy District Judge (a part-time judge) in private children cases. A feature of the later parts of the proceedings was that there is the potential for subsequent parallel investigations by various regulatory bodies associated with their professions.

In the first judgment, A Local Authority v. X and Y (No. 1: Determination of Oxfordshire Argument) [2024] EWFC 445, the court determined arguments about the scope of the required threshold findings. Mrs Justice Theis rejected the parents’ contention that they had made sufficient concessions, holding that they were “exculpatory and do not have any evidential foundation other than limited self-reporting” and that there remained a “significant gulf between what the local authority allege and what the parents concede”. The court accepted the arguments of the local authority and the children’s guardian that determination of the extensive threshold allegations were required and, at paragraph 30, approved a checklist of principles as representing the correct approach when determining a so-called Oxfordshire threshold argument.

The second judgment, A Local Authority v. X and Y (No. 2: Fact-finding) [2024] EWFC 365, contained findings of fact proved by the local authority which, as summarised in a later judgment, amounted to “a punishing regime of care for the children conducted … that included refusing food to the children, leaving the children at home overnight, controlling behaviour, abusive (including racist) language, shouting and swearing, throwing objects, inappropriate punishment (such as standing against a wall, being isolated in bedrooms or outside for long periods, confiscation of spectacles, pushing soap into a child’s mouth, throwing a child into a water trough) and physical assaults (including hitting with objects, smacking, restriction of the neck, dragging and hitting heads together)”. The parents did not seek to challenge the evidence, on the grounds of the asserted impact on their health and that of the children, but nevertheless advanced submissions. The Family Court considered the extent to which it could take such arguments into account when the underlying evidence had not been contested, in light of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Griffiths v. TUI U.K. Ltd [2023] UKSC 48 (a case not previously referred to within family, rather than civil, proceedings). Mrs Justice Theis held that there were “no circumstances, as set out in TUI … that apply in this case, with the result that the parents are not able to rely on anything that undermines the local authority evidence”, although the court could nevertheless “take into account in its overall assessment of the evidence anything that is favourable to [the parents]”.

The case attracted media attention, in part because of the arguments concerning whether the parents should be named. Submissions were made in court on behalf of the B.B.C., the Press Association and independent journalists including at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. In the third judgment, A Local Authority v. X and Y (No. 3: Application under Rule 27.11(3) F.P.R. 2010 to Exclude a Member of the Press) [2025] EWFC 49, the court dismissed an application made by the parents, acting at this stage unrepresented, to exclude an accredited member of the press from the court hearings. It is an early example of the Family Court considering the relatively new rules introduced nationally after the Transparency Pilot designed to increase public awareness and understanding of the work of the family courts.

Arguments about the extent to which the press could report details, including the parents’ names, arising from the proceedings were determined in the fourth judgment, A Local Authority v. X and Y (No. 4: Welfare and Reporting of Judgments) [2025] EWFC 126. Mrs Justice Theis considered that the balance of factors was “exquisitely poised”, with “compelling and powerful factors on each side of the scales”, but that the Article 10 rights of the press to report the identities of the parents, and of the children to speak about their experiences, did not outweigh the privacy concerns arising from Article 8. It is a substantial judgment which considers much of the modern case law on transparency and reporting, including the recent decisions in Abbasi v. Newcastle upon-Tyne Hospitals N.H.S. Foundation Trust [2025] UKSC 15 (Supreme Court), Tickle v. B.B.C. [2025] EWCA Civ 42 (Court of Appeal), and M v. F [2025] EWHC 801 (Fam) (High Court). She made a reporting restriction order permitting limited reporting of the proceedings, without permission to name the parents.

In a fifth judgment, A Local Authority v. X and Y (No. 5: Transparency Order)[2025] EWFC 140, the court determined a last-minute application, issued by the parents the day before the judgments were originally due to be published, rejecting an attempt to enlarge the terms of the reporting restriction order. Mrs Justice Theis agreed with the contention that the application represented “misuse of litigation machinery” and remarked that “the proper and timely management of this difficult case has been hijacked by the actions of the parents to the detriment of the children”. This judgment set out in detail the terms of the restrictions and the further matters the parents sought to exclude from press reports.

The proceedings have been the subject of significant press reporting:

• “Teacher and judge who ran abusive household cannot be named, rules High Court” – H. Summers, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
• “Judge who sits on family cases failed to protect children from abusive partner” – C. Moloney, The Law Gazette
• “Primary school teacher and barrister win right to anonymity despite teacher ‘strangling and abusing’ one of their adopted sons” – T. Midlane, The Daily Mail
• “Teacher and judge ‘routinely neglected’ their adopted sons, High Court finds” – N. Massey, Care Appointments (Press Association)
• “Teacher and barrister who ran abusive home cannot be identified, High Court rules” – H. Summers, The Guardian
• “Child abuse is never above the law – not even if you’re a family court judge” – L. Tickle, The Observer

William Dean, instructed by Sara Tomaszewski at Hugh James L.L.P., acted for the local authority throughout the proceedings. Tim Parker K.C., Oliver Millington and Lucy Lodewyke, instructed by Hannah Perry at Goodman Ray Solicitors L.L.P., acted for one of the parents (the primary school teacher) during the first part of the proceedings.