Lifting the lid on claims of “parental alienation” – increased access for journalists in family court proceedings

Ahead of our upcoming event, Reporting Transparency in our Family Courts, on 4 June 2026, we explore a recent decision enabling greater scrutiny in the family justice system.

If you would like to join us, our panel featuring former BBC reporter Sanchia Berg, Claire Overman from Doughty Street Chambers, Helen Pomeroy from 1 King’s Bench Walk, chaired by SMB Partner Tessa Bray, will discuss the implications of these developments. For more information or if you would like to attend, please click here.

The Family Courts deal with sensitive and difficult cases involving family breakdown. Historically proceedings in the Family Courts were heard in secret without the scrutiny of journalists. But there is a balance to be struck between protecting privacy and allowing public scrutiny of how the courts decide cases. This was demonstrated in a recent High Court decision in Bradley v CM & others [2026] EWHC 125 (Fam) [EL1.1] granting a journalist access to psychological reports that were commissioned in family proceedings.

The journalist, Jessica Bradley, had previously reported on expert evidence provided in family court proceedings on “alienating behaviour” – where one parent encourages the child to avoid the other parent. Ms Bradley wished to explore this issue further by having access to four sets of family court proceedings in which such allegations had been made.

Ms Bradley made an application for the final orders and judgments, Cafcass reports, expert psychological reports and to quote from the psychological reports in all four cases. Her application fell outside the scope of the transparency order used in the Family Courts since Parliament had agreed that the family justice system should be more open. Transparency orders are usually granted when an accredited journalist or legal blogger attends a hearing. They allow access to certain case documents and permission to quote from those documents and report on the proceedings. However, they do not allow access to Cafcass and psychological reports which often contain sensitive information about mental health or unproven allegations against parents.

Therefore, the court was invited to exercise its inherent jurisdiction to allow Ms Bradley’s request. The court’s starting point was the open justice principle in which context it conducted a balancing exercise against the Article 10 rights claimed and the Article 8 rights and welfare of the children involved.

The judge considered that there was a strong public interest in understanding how the Family Courts deal with issues of alienating behaviour. The judge recognised that Ms Bradley had requested more evidence than what would be afforded to a reporter by way of a transparency order upon attending a hearing. However, the judge noted that the nature of the Family Court made it difficult for reporters to become aware of a public interest in a particular case prior to it being heard.

In one of the cases, there was a published anonymised judgment in which the judge had addressed the Cafcass and psychological reports. No information about the other three cases was in the public domain. There was no suggestion that the children would be identified in the reporting. The judge acknowledged, nonetheless, that jigsaw identification could never be eliminated, as facts contained in reports of proceedings are often enough to allow acquaintances to recognise those involved.

The mothers in the proceedings supported the applications. The fathers and court guardians were opposed. The judge sought the children’s opinions where they had sufficient maturity to understand the issues. They all supported the application or did not have a view. The elder children expressed views that they would not be harmed by personal information about them from the reports being published if it was anonymised. However, when considering the weight to be attached to the children’s views, the judge distinguished between the children’s wishes and acting in their best interests.

In balancing the competing rights, the judge allowed Ms Bradley to have access to the Cafcass and psychological reports. However, the balance shifted when considering the parts of the psychological reports dealing with psychological assessments of individual children and recommendations for therapy. Consequently, the judge restricted publication of the psychological reports to the summaries of the conclusions and the parts about child arrangements. The judges in the cases that had no published judgments were invited to make anonymised versions available on the National Archives.

The decision demonstrates that the Family Court recognises the vital role of journalists in holding judges to account for the decisions they make and furthering the public’s understanding of how the justice system works. However, such scrutiny must be pursued with judicial oversight to ensure that the privacy rights and welfare of families and children are protected.