There is a public interest in encouraging the frank and ready co-operation from people as diverse as doctors, school teachers, neighbours, the child in question, the parents themselves, and other close relations, including other children in the same family, on which the proper functioning of the system depends.
Nicholls LJ said: ‘it is very much in the interests of children generally that potential witnesses in such proceedings are not deterred from giving evidence by the fear that their private affairs or privately expressed views will be exposed to the public gaze.’
Ralph Gibson LJ said: ‘It seems clear to me that any person asked by a court welfare officer to provide information for such a report, whether a party to the proceedings, a friend or relation of a party, or a doctor or teacher who has treated or taught the child, would know that the information which he or she gives to the welfare officer, and his or her identity as the giver of it, would be made known for the purposes of the court’s inquiry and therefore disclosed to the parties. Most people, I think, would if they thought about it, suppose that the information would not be used for any other purpose but they would be neither surprised nor indignant if told that it could be used for another purpose if the court considered that it was proper, in the interests of justice, for it to be disclosed at the court’s direction. For my part, therefore, I do not think that there is any reason to believe that there would be any significant effect upon the willingness of the people of this country to provide information to court welfare officers in preparing reports for the court, if people were told that normally no use would be made of the information given, save in and for the proceedings in which the report had been ordered but that it might also be used at the order of the court if justice required that it be not limited solely to that primary use.’
Judges:
Nicholls LJ, Ralph Gibson LJ
Citations:
[1990] Ch 662
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Kent County Council v The Mother, The Father, B (By Her Children’s Guardian); Re B (A Child) (Disclosure) FD 19-Mar-2004
The council had taken the applicant’s children into care alleging that the mother had harmed them. In the light of the subsequent cases casting doubt on such findings, the mother sought the return of her children. She applied now that the hearings . .
Cited – Doctor A and Others v Ward and Another FD 8-Jan-2010
Parents wished to publicise the way care proceedings had been handled, naming the doctors, social workers and experts some of whom had been criticised. Their names had been shown as initials so far, and interim contra mundum orders had been made . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Children
Updated: 23 June 2022; Ref: scu.194855
