A test of transparency in the Family Court
16/02/2026
As any journalist who frequents the family courts will know only too well, reporting on cases can be challenging.
Though the relatively recent implementation of Transparency Orders (following a pilot scheme in 2023) has helped to improve the ability of reporters to shed light on what occurs behind the closed doors of the Family Courts, there can still be many a hurdle to surpass before a journalist can truly understand complicated cases.
A Transparency Order (governed by Practice Direction 12R of the Family Procedure Rules) generally allows a journalist to access and quote from case outlines and summaries, position statements (including skeleton arguments) threshold documents and chronologies, as long as the anonymity of the family involved is maintained.
However, to achieve a true understanding of complex cases, it might be that a journalist also requires access to additional documents - expert medical reports and Cafcass reports, for example.
This was exactly the issue that arose in a recently decided case: Bradley v CM and others [2026] EWHC 125 (Fam).
In this case, Ms Bradley, a journalist, applied for access to case documents and permission to report on them. The request related to four separate family cases, and Ms Bradley was requesting access to court orders, judgments, Cafcass reports, and the reports of a Clinical Psychologist who was appointed in all four of the cases.
All the cases concerned Parental Alienation Syndrome (“PAS”) and therefore, Ms Bradley argued that disclosure of the documents requested was in the public interest because of the recent attention PAS had received, and the fact that it has been discredited.
In all four of the cases, one parent supported Ms Bradley’s application and the other opposed it. Where possible, the views of the children concerned were sought, and they were either supportive of Ms Bradley’s application, or did not oppose it.
The Clinical Psychologist expressed concerns that her work had been misrepresented in one of Ms Bradley’s publications, and felt that the journalist having access to anonymised judgments and orders was enough to satisfy the open justice principle. The Clinical Psychologist also expressed concerns that the reports being sought contained highly sensitive personal matters, and those who provided the information had been told it was only for the purpose of the family court proceedings.
The protection of the children’s identities if the application were granted was not at issue; all parties agreed that they should be protected.
Mr Justice Poole had to decide whether to grant the order for Ms Bradley to have access to the documents; and if access were given, whether she would be permitted to report their contents.
After hearing submissions, the Judge made decisions in respect of each of the four categories of document being sought:
- Judgments: Ms Bradley was allowed access to three previously unpublished judgments, but was not permitted to publish information from them. The judgments were not yet anonymised because they were unpublished, so they would be returned to the appropriate judges with an invitation for them to be anonymised and published.
- Orders:It was noted that over 50 orders had been made in the course of the four sets of proceedings. The Judge decided to identify six orders which were to be anonymised by the guardian’s representatives, or the courts, before they were provided to Ms Bradley.
- Clinical Psychologist reports: Ms Bradley was granted access to the reports, but the Judge held that it was both necessary and proportionate to restrict what could be published from them. Essentially, the overall conclusions of the reports could be published, but not the detailed record of the evidence gathered from the various families or the psychological assessments of them.
- Cafcass Reports: Access was granted to these reports, but Ms Bradley had not requested permission to publish their contents.
In coming to the above conclusions, Mr Justice Poole carried out a delicate balancing exercise.
On the one hand, there was the public interest in the public being able to understand family court proceedings, and specifically, in exploring the court’s treatment of PAS, along with Ms Bradley’s right to freedom of expression.
On the other hand was the privacy of those involved in the cases: some of the family proceedings in question had concluded several years earlier, and the publication of information regarding the cases could be traumatising for those children involved.
It was for this reason that Mr Justice Poole was careful to obtain the views of the children concerned where it was possible and they were mature enough to express those views.
In his conclusions, the Judge made it clear that he considered there to be a significant public interest in better understanding PAS and how it has been addressed in the family court, as well as the role of expert evidence in those cases. However, he did not accept that in order to achieve that aim, it was necessary for Ms Bradley to have free access to all the documents requested and to be able to quote from them at will.
Interestingly, in the first instance, Ms Bradley applied for retrospective transparency orders, but the case confirms that the Family Procedure Rules do not allow for this.
Whilst access to Family Court proceedings documents is strictly controlled in order to protect the privacy of those involved, this case demonstrates yet again that there are ways to access Family Court documents, and that access to this branch of the Courts of England and Wales is improving.
As part of his ruling, Mr Justice Poole noted that guidance, or a more streamlined process, would be helpful for bringing applications which fell outside the Practice Direction governing Transparency Orders, so perhaps further changes are in the offing. Watch this space.