I have written another judgment summary over at Family Law Week, this time for the case of Jessica Bradley v CM & Ors [2026] EWHC 125 (Fam).

This was an application by a journalist for access to the reports of a clinic psychologist in four separate child arrangements proceedings. The application went beyond what journalists are routinely allowed access to under the ‘template transparency order‘.

This case is in many ways a companion judgment to Re AB (Disclosure of Position Statements) [2025] EWCOP 25 (T3) in the Court of Protection. This was another judgment of Poole J, in which disclosure of documents from previous hearings (that an observer had not attended) was ordered on the open justice principle. That judgment is under appeal.

I am aware that access to documents in order to understand hearings is not limited to the Family Court and Court of Protection. Last month I noted that criminal court reporters were grumbling about lack of access.

Last summer, Sir Nicholas Mostyn gave a law reform lecture (with an accompanying monograph) on how Financial Remedy proceedings are routinely subject to strong disclosure restictions, despite the absence of a child or protected party with Article 8 rights to protect. Discussing the recent case of MK v SK [2026] EWFC 28, Sir Nicholas wrote:

The second point relates to the decision to anonymise the judgment, which I venture to suggest is completely ridiculous. This was a pure financial inquiry where the focus was on iniquitous non-disclosure. There were no children involved at all. It is not difficult to imagine, on reading the judgment, the same facts being in this issue in a shareholder dispute between the husband and his associate CD. Such a dispute would have been heard in open court. What possible reason is there for this judgment being anonymised?

It seems to me that there has been a wholesale amnesia on the part of the family judiciary and family as to what is actually happening when a trial takes place. It is not some private affair presided over by a jointly appointed arbitrator. The Judge sits in a courtroom below the Royal arms and dispenses Justice on behalf of the monarch who acts on behalf of the state. When Justice is dispensed by the state it is not by the government but by and in the name of all of the people of this country. If this judgment were being delivered in France it would be preface with the words “au nom du peuple”. I would strongly argue that this judgment is given in the name of the people and that the people are entitled to know for whom Justice has been dispensed on their behalf. It is an insult to the people for this judgment to be issued in such a way that it is almost completely unreadable by virtue of the alphabet soup into which the reader is plunged. And it is an insult to the people that they are not allowed to know, when considering a judgment issued in their name, anything about this case, even the country in which the disputed trust was situated.