A child was made subject of wardship application after her half sister made allegations of sexual abuse against their father. In dealing with these proceedings, he sought disclosure of the records prepared by the social workers in the first case. He now appealed against a refusal of an order for their production.
Held: The father’s appeal failed. In general, such discovery is inappropriate, but the automatic refusal of such requests should be reconsidered. In an appropriate wardship case, a Family Division judge has the power to order the local authorities social workers’ records about a child. To hold otherwise would deprive parties of a proper recourse to legal action. The court might first need himself to inspect such records to assist any decision about whether they might assist.
Butler-Sloss LJ said: ‘On the application of a party to the proceedings for disclosure of relevant documents the judge has a duty to weigh up competing public interests . . It is for the court on the application to decide whether the public interest in protecting the social work records overrides the public interest that the party to the proceedings should obtain the information he or she is seeking in order to obtain legal redress.’ and
‘For my part, I consider that the strict approach developed in 1970 and followed in subsequent decisions must be relaxed in the light of the current legislation and modern opinion about greater openness in society. The DHSS issued guide-lines on the rights of access of the subject of social work files who had been in care in a series of directives from 1983. The Access to Personal Files Act 1987, which gives rights to access to certain documents, is another pointer in the same direction. The law of evidence must move with the times. None of this invalidates the general principle of public interest immunity, but it will undoubtedly have an effect on the balancing operation to be conducted by the judge.’
Judges:
Butler-Sloss LJ, Lloyd and Nicholls LJJ
Citations:
[1990] 2 FLR 36
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Durham County Council v Dunn CA 13-Dec-2012
The claimant wished to begin a claim alleging historic sexual abuse while he had been at an institution run by the defendants. The claimant sought pre-trial disclosure of various documents and the court now considered the principle applicable, and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Children, Litigation Practice
Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.467125