Louise Tickle v The BBC

Hearing dates: 14 and 15 January 2025

This judgment was handed down remotely at 10:00am on Friday 24 January 2025 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls:

Introduction

These appeals concern the court's jurisdiction to prohibit the publication of the names of the judges who have decided particular cases in the past. The question arises in the context of historic care proceedings and private family law proceedings (the historic proceedings) relating to Sara Sharif (Sara), who was brutally murdered by her father and step-mother in early August 2023. The conclusions we reach may have wider significance.

On 18 August 2023, the Local Authority made a wardship application in respect of five of Sara's siblings, who had been wrongfully removed to Pakistan. Quickly thereafter, on 8 September 2023, the journalists requested disclosure of documents relating to the historic proceedings. They issued a C66 in that regard on 29 September 2023, and the BBC issued a C2 seeking similar relief on 31 October 2023. PA Media then joined the proceedings, and the other Media Parties were joined on 26 November 2024. All these applications were dealt with primarily by the Family Division judge handling the matter, Mr Justice Williams (the judge). The full details of the wardship proceedings are not relevant to what we have to decide, but many of them are contained in the judge's two judgments of June 2024 (not yet reported) and 18 December 2024 ( [2024] EWHC 3330 (Fam)) (respectively, the June judgment and the December judgment).

The judge made a number of Reporting Restrictions Orders in the run up to and during the lengthy criminal trial of the father and the step-mother. That trial culminated in convictions on 11 December 2024 and sentencing on 17 December 2024.

The order now appealed was pronounced orally on 9 December 2024, just before the criminal trial concluded. It was drawn up on 11 December 2024 (the Order). It allowed the press to see and publish numerous documents from the historic proceedings. It included at [15(g)] an order preventing the media reporting the names of the judges (and other professionals) who had been involved in the historic proceedings (which related to Sara and to two of her siblings). The relevant part of the Order provided as follows:

… no person may publish any information arising from the disclosure of the documents from these proceedings to the public, or a section of it, which includes: …

g. The name of any third parties referred to in the historic proceedings for the avoidance of doubt including social worker, guardian other named professionals and experts instructed in the proceedings and any Judge who heard the historic proceedings (save for Mr Justice Williams). …

including not repeating such information by reference to the disclosed documents even if it is already in the public domain [emphasis added].

When he pronounced the Order in court, no party had asked for the names of the three circuit judges who had been involved in the historic proceedings (the historic judges) to be anonymised. The judge had heard no submissions on the point. He had not mentioned to the parties that he had in mind to make the order he did. Counsel's note of the judge's oral remarks on 9 December 2024 reads as follows:

Naming of 3 ^rd parties, at this stage I will not permit the naming of any 3 ^rd parties. Social workers, guardian, and not Judges who have given verdicts save for myself. They need to be given the opportunity to make observations on whether they should be identified before in the inevitable social media pile on and being identified by name. I do not think this adds sufficiently to the story telling to outweigh impact on individuals, which is evident.

The journalists immediately sought permission to appeal the anonymisation of the historic judges. I shall refer to the historic judges individually as Judges 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The judge acknowledged that he had not heard argument on the point and invited written submissions, which were duly lodged. On 13 December 2024, the judge's clerk sent an email to the parties confirming that the judge had considered those submissions, and that he maintained his decision that the historic judges were not to be named and that reasons would follow. On the same day, the journalists intimated their application for permission to appeal, and the judge decided to adjourn that application to be dealt with after delivery of his reasoned judgment.

In his reasoned judgment of 18 December 2024, the judge said he would not name the judges “without enquiries being made of them as to their health and their response to the possibility of being named” [91], and that he would “list the matter for further consideration in 3 months' time when those who might be identified [could] be notified and given the opportunity if they wish to make representations and [he could] receive evidence about the intensity of the reactions that have been generated” [92]. The judge had no further opportunity to consider the adjourned application for permission to appeal, as I had granted permission on 19 December 2024. We granted the Media Parties permission to appeal on the same grounds on the first day of the hearing.

The journalists' grounds of appeal (upon which the Media Parties also rely) take four main points:

i) It was a serious procedural irregularity for the judge not to have given reasons before anonymising the historic judges.

ii) The judge adopted an unfair, biased and inappropriate approach to the journalists and the media generally (including relying on his own erroneous analysis of alleged media irresponsibility), thereby unacceptably encroaching on their rights under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This ground was added by amendment and permission has not yet been granted to allow it to be pursued.

iii) The judge ought to have held that the demands of open justice meant that anonymity for a judge could not be justified within the framework of balancing article 8 and article 10 of the ECHR.

iv) The part of the Order anonymising the historic judges could not be justified in the absence of any specific application or evidential foundation, and was inimical to the proper administration of justice.

On 20 December 2024, King LJ directed that the historic judges be contacted to obtain their views (if they wished to express any). On 9 January 2025, leading and junior counsel for the historic judges filed a note indicating that: (a) none of them had sought anonymity, (b) each of them now had serious concerns about the risks which would arise if they were now identified, particularly in the prevailing circumstances, including the content and often inflammatory nature of public and media commentary arising from the intense scrutiny which has followed from the December judgment, (c) those concerns related not only to their own personal wellbeing but also to their family members and others close to them, whose interests the court might also want to take into account, (d) two of the historic judges (Judges 1 and 2, who were now retired and made only an emergency protection order and an interim care order respectively) considered that it would be right for their identities to remain protected, (e) Judge 3 was a sitting judge who was not, therefore, able to adduce evidence and did not feel it appropriate to express a position on whether their identity should remain protected,...