M v BBC
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1997 |
| Date | 1997 |
| Court | Family Division |
HALE, J
Disclosure of information – children conceived by artificial insemination by donor – parents separating – mother making application for financial provision to Child Support Agency – BBC making a television documentary about the Child Support Agency – programme revealing applicant's infertility – applicant seeking order restraining publication of that information – not sought to protect the children – court balancing privacy of proceedings against public interest in disclosure of information – whether court would intervene to protect the applicant.
Two children were born to the applicant's former wife during the course of their marriage. The children were born as a result of donor insemination. The former wife had made an application under the Child Support Act 1991 for financial provision ("the original proceedings"). The applicant had disputed liability and applied for a declaration of paternity. The issue in those proceedings was whether or not the applicant fell within the definition of a parent for the purposes of the Child Support Act.
The respondent sought to broadcast a programme relating to the operations of the Child Support Agency. The programme included an interview with the applicant's former wife and one of the children. The children were aware of the facts of their parentage, and the former wife had also given an interview to a national newspaper. The applicant did not argue that the children should be protected from the publicity of the television programme. He objected only to that part of the programme which revealed his own infertility. He sought an order preventing the respondent from publishing any information relating to the Child Support Act proceedings.
Held – (1) The applicant did not argue that the children should be protected from this publicity. This was not, therefore, a case which was in any way founded upon the inherent jurisdiction of the court to prohibit publications which were harmful to the welfare of children. Hence the application had to be founded upon the protection of the privacy of the proceedings themselves. The proceedings had begun in a family proceedings court. Attendance at such hearings was limited. The press could attend as of right, but what they could report was limited. In the event the only hearing that took place in the family proceedings court had been for directions. Section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 provided that the publication of information relating to proceedings before any court sitting in private should not of itself be contempt of court except, inter alia, where proceedings related wholly or mainly to the upbringing of a minor. For the purposes of this decision the court would accept that the original proceedings were brought for the
purpose of determining liability to maintain the child and therefore were at least "mainly" to do with their maintenance or upbringing. The question then arose as to whether the information to which he objected was information "relating" to the proceedings. On this point the matter was borderline. There were ways in which the information contained in the programme could have been put before the public and it could not have been challenged. However, this was a programme which related specifically to the operations of the Child Support Agency. The information contained in the programme related to the precise issue in dispute in the original proceedings. Those proceedings would be entirely concerned with the consequences of the circumstances of the children's conception. Thus it seemed that by a very fine margin the information was capable of being information relating to proceedings within the meaning of s 12 of the 1960 Act. However, when looking at this information, and deciding whether or not its publication should be prohibited the court was exercising a discretionary jurisdiction, and had to balance relevant considerations of principle. Section 12 was about the protection of the privacy of proceedings, not about the protection of the privacy of the parties. The object of s 12 seemed also to protect children not adults because it was limited to proceedings concerning children. If there had been any objective of protecting the overall privacy of sensitive information relating to adults there would have been some indication of this in the case-law or the statute. Adults had no general right of privacy. Had there been no "proceedings" in this case the question of preventing the use of the information could only have arisen in the context of the inherent jurisdiction to protect the interests of children. That jurisdiction should only be invoked where the interests of the children really demanded that they be protected notwithstanding the very strong interest in freedom of speech.
(2) Even if the information contained in the programme was capable of being covered by the protection given to information relating to proceedings held in private, it should not be prohibited from publication here. It was not necessary to prohibit the publication for the purposes for which the prohibition had been given. The protection was given for children and for courts dealing with children. It was not for the adults involved, and in this particular case there could be no question of the children needing to be protected from the divulging of this information. Therefore, the public interest in freedom of speech and expression should prevail. As a...
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