City and County of Swansea v XZ (First Respondent) YZ (Second Respondent) The Children (by their Guardian, Joanne Bamford) (Next Respondents) The Press, Media and Others (Final Respondents)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Moor |
| Judgment Date | 10 February 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 212 (Fam) |
| Court | Family Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: UV 13 C 00056 |
| Date | 10 February 2014 |
[2014] EWHC 212 (Fam)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Moor
Case No: UV 13 C 00056
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Ms Janet Bazley QC for the Applicant
Mr Jonathan Furness QC and Ms Sharon James for the First Respondent
Ms Lucy Leader for the Second Respondent
Ms Alison Ball QC for the Children's Guardian
Ms Caoilfhionn Gallagher for Times Newspapers Ltd, Guardian News and Media Ltd, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the South Wales Evening Post
Hearing date: 21st January 2014
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This is an application by the Local Authority, the City and County of Swansea to extend a Reporting Restriction Order that I made initially on 11th March 2013. An earlier version of that Order had been made by me on 6 th March 2013 following an out-of-hours application by the Local Authority. The Local Authority was concerned that some details of the case were about to be reported on ITV Wales.
My original order severely restricts media reporting of criminal proceedings instituted against XZ, the First Respondent, who is the Mother of the surviving children with whom I am concerned. Indeed, it really only enables the media to report the charges she faces with reference to her identity being limited to " a woman from the Swansea area". The order was to continue until the conclusion of the criminal proceedings.
Although the media was served with notice of the March 2013 application, it is right to note that the media was not represented before me and no substantive opposition was made to the order at that point. I did not, therefore, hear full argument. I was satisfied that, prima facie, the Local Authority was entitled to its order but made detailed directions for the trial of the issue should the media subsequently decide to challenge it. I am quite satisfied that the fact that the media did not originally challenge the order is of no relevance to the issues which I now have to decide.
The Mother was originally charged with two counts, namely the murder of her baby daughter, AZ (Child A) in August 2006 and grievous bodily harm with intent against her baby BZ (Child B) in November 2007. Medical reports have since been obtained as to the Mother's mental health at the time of the alleged offences. Following production of those reports, the Mother pleaded guilty on 16th December 2013 to the infanticide of AZ and the wounding of BZ. The Court (Wyn Williams J) and the CPS accepted the pleas. The Mother is due to be sentenced on 13th February 2014.
The Local Authority applied on 3rd January 2014 to extend my order notwithstanding the conclusion of the criminal trial. It appeared at first that it was seeking an indefinite extension. It has since, quite properly, been made clear that the extension sought is until the youngest of the children attains the age of 18. The Local Authority's application is supported by the Mother, the Father and the Guardian on behalf of the children.
Ms Gallagher appears on behalf of four media organisations, namely Times Newspapers Ltd, Guardian News and Media Ltd (publishers of the Guardian and the Observer), the British Broadcasting Corporation and the South Wales Evening Post.
At first, the position of the media organisations was to oppose the grant of anonymity to the Mother. At that stage, the organisations did not have the full papers in the case available. An application was made to me last week for permission to serve the full papers on them. I granted the application as soon as it came to my attention but I consider that it was not a satisfactory situation. I take the clear view that, in any case where a Reporting Restriction Order is applied for, the Applicant should immediately serve all evidence on which it relies on any media organisation that requests it, provided the organisation has been served with notice of the application either directly or through Copy Direct. It is not necessary for the organisation to intervene formally to obtain the documents as I accept Ms Gallagher's submission that it is very difficult for the media to know whether to intervene or not until it has seen the evidence. The media is, of course, subject to the normal requirements for confidentiality. It follows that there is no need to obtain permission to let them see those documents.
Once the media organisations had seen the full evidence on which the Local Authority relied, they changed their position to accept the need for anonymity in the quite exceptional circumstances of this particular case. They did so solely as a result of the need to protect the welfare of the surviving children. As I will explain in detail in due course, I make it clear that I am completely satisfied that this was the correct and responsible position for the media organisations to adopt. It was a very welcome concession to make, for which all parties indicated their gratitude during the hearing.
It does, however, mean that the ambit of the dispute narrowed very considerably. In essence, the only area on which I now have to rule is the extent of the restrictions necessary to ensure that the children are not identified notwithstanding the order for anonymity. There is, of course, very considerable law as to when it is appropriate to grant a Reporting Restriction Order. I will briefly outline the law in due course but I make it clear at this stage that the only restrictions on publication that are justified are those that are required to prevent identification of the children. In this case, this inevitably means that the identity of the Mother cannot be reported either as to do so would itself inevitably lead to the identification of the children. However, in every other respect, the media should be free to report. I propose at the end of this judgment to make clear a number of matters that are not restricted by my order. Indeed, as the hearing progressed, the differences between the parties narrowed considerably, with both sides of the argument making sensible and appropriate concessions.
Indeed, by the end, I was left with only a limited number of issues to decide, relating to whether or not to permit publication of certain background details relating to the family.
The history
To understand why it is that this case is truly exceptional, it is necessary to give some detail of the history of the matter, although I make it very clear that the history of the litigation in particular has been very complex and of exceedingly long duration. It is not possible, nor necessary, for me to do more than give a relatively short overview of what has happened which will be necessarily restricted in my open judgement by the need to protect the identity of the children.
The Mother and Father were both born abroad and are nationals of that country. They met in 1998 and married in the same year.
The parents came to the UK in 2004 and then lived in the Swansea area..
In 2006 AZ was born. She died just over a month later. The post-mortem indicated that she had a subdural haemorrhage over the brain and spinal cord, probably caused by a combination of recent bleeding and pre-existing subdural haemorrhage. There was an axonal injury in the brain stem and spinal cord together with orbital, optic nerve sheath and optic nerve haemorrhages of different ages. There were two opposing curved arcades of greying bruising on her right thigh and left thigh and a faint grey bruise across the centre of her forehead. Neither the Police nor Local Authority took any substantive action at that stage.
In 2007, BZ was born, who is therefore now aged 6. In November 2007, BZ appeared quite lifeless and was admitted to hospital. BZ's injuries were found to include bilateral subdural haemorrhages as well as a healing undisplaced transverse fracture of the mid-shaft of the left ulna together with a healing injury to the right tibia. Fortunately, BZ survived.
On 29th November 2007, an Interim Care Order was granted in relation to BZ who was placed with foster carers on discharge from hospital. The other children, however, remained living at home.
Wood J undertook a fact finding hearing which concluded with a judgment on 30th October 2008. He said that the reports of the care given by the parents to the other children had been uniformly positive. He found, on the balance of probabilities, that both AZ and BZ had been the victims of non-accidental injury. In particular, they had been the victims of shaking or shaking/impact. Neither parent had been prepared to give him a truthful account in the witness box. The Mother had been under immense strain and had a history of depressive illness. She was not coping. Although both parents fell under suspicion, he found that it was more likely than not that it was the Mother who had inflicted the injuries, having been " overborne by the weight of her general plight." The Judge did not believe the Father had witnessed the incidents but he had obfuscated the truth in an attempt to cover up for the Mother.
Dr Holt, a consultant psychiatrist reported in January 2009 that the Mother was a risk to small babies but, as BZ was now older, the child could return to join the family. In April 2009, the Mother indicated that she was pregnant again. Her mother then died, which caused her yet further distress. She then started to make admissions to Mrs Price, an Independent Social Worker. Dr Holt subsequently changed his recommendation to adoption. The Father then proposed that the Mother should move out of the family home and he should care for the children alone. Wood J rejected this plan and found that...
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