Opening up Family Court hearings is a victory for transparency

Martin Shipton

Will the recent change in policy that allows journalists to attend Family Court hearings help us discover whether too many children are taken into care in Wales?

It’s an important question that until a few weeks ago was beyond the ability of any journalist to answer.

In May 2024, during the brief period when he was First Minister, Vaughan Gething told a Senedd scrutiny committee that too many children were being taken from their families. More than one child in every 100 in Wales was now living in care.

Newport East Labour MS John Griffiths had raised concerns about an 83% increase in the number of children in care between 2003 and 2022. He said care rates were significantly higher in Wales than in England, together with “massive, unexplained” variations within Wales.

Mr Gething responded that “some people get decent outcomes” but “far too many don’t”.

Child abuse

The issue about whether children are needlessly taken into care has troubled me for many years. Back in the 1980s I wrote about the Cleveland child abuse scandal in the north east of England, where I was working at the time.

Two doctors who used what turned out to be a faulty diagnostic technique concluded over a five-month period that more than 120 children had been sexually abused and needed to be removed from their families. With the help of a compliant social worker, they were made subject to “place of safety” orders that saw them spirited away to undisclosed locations.

Later, as doubts were cast on the accuracy of the technique, most of the children were returned to their parents.

What happened made an impression on me. On the other hand, I was also shocked by a succession of cases over the years where young children had been killed by their parents or others close to them, in circumstances where mistakes were made by social workers who had failed to intervene.

Treated unfairly

From time to time I was contacted by individuals who believed they had been treated unfairly by the Family Court system. While their stories often seemed plausible, they were never easy to get a handle on because Family Court proceedings were always held in private.

On one occasion, I came the closest I’ve ever come to being sent to prison because I wrote a story that quoted from a social services report which had been passed to me by a parent. Neither I nor the editor of the paper I was working for realised that it was in contempt of court to quote from such a document, even though we made sure the child concerned couldn’t be identified. The judge insisted that I was represented in court by my own barrister, distinct from the paper’s. The paper paid. As we waited to hear our fate, the editor and I eased our nerves by joking about sharing a cell. In the event, we were both let off with a warning, but I’ve been wary about getting involved in such cases ever since.

Nevertheless, I thought it appropriate to take the opportunity to attend a Family Court hearing and see how the new, more transparent arrangements were working.

I thought it wise to call the court on the day before the chosen hearing at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre, to see whether I really would be able to attend, or whether for some reason the case would still be heard in private. When I rang, I didn’t have the good fortune to speak to a human being. Instead I pressed a succession of numbers on my keypad that took me to pre-recorded messages which didn’t allow me to get an answer to my query. A call to the Ministry of Justice press office didn’t help either.

‘Transparency Order’

On Thursday morning I arrived at the Civil Justice Centre and was directed to the court where the case was to be heard. I introduced myself to the clerk of the court, who spoke to Judge Jayne Scannell. Before the hearing began, she explained that what turned out to be a five-page “Transparency Order” would be served on me, making it clear what was permissible and what wasn’t – the most important element being that the parties must not be identified.

The issue to be decided was whether the mother of an eight-year-old boy should be allowed to meet him, in what circumstances and how regularly. According to the father’s barrister, the boy didn’t want to meet the mother. There had been allegations of assault and sexual abuse, although there was no police investigation underway.

The judge was not impressed with written submissions made on behalf of the father – a statement containing more than 100 pages with appendices was unacceptable for this particular hearing and no CVs had been provided for two supposed expert witnesses that the father wanted to use in pressing his case.

The mother’s barrister complained that the father and his legal representatives had not been prepared to discuss any compromise under which the boy could meet his mother.

Judge Scannell encouraged the two sides to devise between them a schedule of visits where the boy would meet his mother with an observer present who would report on their interaction. They came to such an agreement. She also insisted that an advocate should be appointed to represent the boy’s interests, as distinct from the interests of the father.

Altogether, including short adjournments, the hearing lasted slightly less than an hour.

What were my overriding impressions?

We sometimes forget that the court system isn’t just about putting people on trial and sentencing criminals, or deciding disputes between two opposing entities, whether they be individuals or organisations.

Interests of children

In the Family Court – which until January 2025 was forbidden territory for journalists – the interests of children are meant to be paramount. At one point in the hearing I watched, Judge Scannell made the point that the dispute between the parents was an “adult argument”. Her role was to ensure the best outcome for the eight-year-old boy, whose welfare was paramount.

Without commenting on this case at all, no doubt there are occasions when the court doesn’t get it right. It was nevertheless clear to me that this judge, while not slow to criticise the father’s legal team for their lapses, was determined to seek a resolution where the boy was not alienated from either of his parents, and was enabled to have a better life.

At a time when the United States is facing an unprecedented assault on its core federal institutions from an insurgent president and his cronies, it’s good that an important part of our legal system – underfunded as it may be – has as its raison d’être the protection of children from harm.

The state, in theory at least, provides the safeguards that an unregulated society never could. To ensure it does its job well, it needs to be scrutinised and held to account.

Making the Family Court shed its past secrecy and become more transparent and thus more accountable is a significant step forward we should all applaud.

If more journalists visit the Family Court, we may get closer to an answer to the first question: will the recent change in policy that allows journalists to attend Family Court hearings help us discover whether too many children are taken into care in Wales?