The President Of The Family Division has called on the Family Justice Council to look into the use of audio and video recordings obtained by parties going through the family courts. Sir James Munby made the request in a judgment published on 18th October.
The case before Munby was an appeal which threw up the issue of covert recordings used within the family courts, their admissibility and the lack of guidance in this area for family professionals and the parties themselves. Parties in family court cases sometimes record events or conversations in secret, to show wrongdoing when there is no other way of proving fault.
Key parts of the judgment are added below:
“The courts have had to grapple with the legal and procedural issues generated by the stool-pigeon, the eavesdropper and the concealed observer since time immemorial. Since the second half of the nineteenth century the courts have had to grapple, and keep up, with the legal and procedural issues generated by the invention of technologies for the audio or visual recording of events.
On one level there is nothing very new about this. Thus, the covert filming or video-recording of personal injury or benefits claimants suspected of fraud has been an established and acceptable practice for many years. But in the family courts the issue has become much more pressing in recent years.
There are, I suspect, two reasons for this. One is the ever increasing sophistication and miniaturisation and at the same time ever decreasing cost of modern recording equipment. For anyone possessed of a smartphone or similar piece of ‘kit’, surreptitious audio recording or filming of events is child’s play.
The other, I fear, has to do with the widespread distrust in too many quarters of the competence or even the integrity of the family justice system and of the professionals involved in it. Here, of course, it is the existence of the mindset rather than its foundation in reality which is the driving force. But it does give rise to important questions of public policy.
That said, it needs to be accepted, with honesty and candour, that there have been in recent years in the family courts shocking examples of professional malpractice which have been established only because of the covert recording of the relevant individual.
It is important to distinguish between open recording and covert recording. In the nature of things, it is the latter which is more problematic. Without seeking to establish a complete taxonomy, there are at a least three categories of covert recording, each of which may raise a variety of different issues: covert recording of children, covert recording of other family members, and covert recording of professionals.
Whatever the nature of the recording, a number of issues are likely to arise.
Again without any pretence to completeness it is obvious that questions may arise as to: (i) the lawfulness of what has been done;
(ii) best practice outside the court room as it were; (iii) the admissibility of the recording in evidence; and
(iv) a variety of other evidential and practice issues (for example, as to how the recording is to be put in evidence, problems in relation to sound and picture quality, and, in particular, disputes as to authenticity – who are the people who can be heard or seen on the recording, has the recording been edited or ‘cut and spliced’? – which may necessitate calling expert evidence).
Furthermore, in relation to all this it may be important to identify who is doing the recording and why. Covert surveillance and recording by the police and other agencies, including the Security Service, which in current conditions not infrequently impinges upon the family courts, is one thing. Covert surveillance and recording by others may – I put the point no higher, it being a matter for another day – raise rather different issues.
I draw attention to these matters to show that covert recording in the context of the family courts potentially involves a myriad of issues, very few of which, despite all the judgments to which I have referred, have, even now, been systematically considered either at first instance or in this court.
I propose therefore, as a first step, to invite the Family Justice Council, which as a multi-disciplinary body is particularly suited to undertake the task, to consider the whole question of covert recording from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint.”
Using his signature blend of diplomacy (make of that what you will), Munby uses the public judgment once more to raise awareness of problems inside the system and invite investigation. Researching Reform hopes that when the time comes, parents, researchers, and activists will all contribute to the consultation. We most certainly will.
They all miss the point yet again !! When parents visit children for contact they are NOT ALLOWED to record anything the children say and neither they nor the children are ALLOWED tto discuss anything to do with the case or any abuse suffered by the children in care.At the slightest deviation from that rule contact is stopped indefinitely.
That is the disgraceful truth that even Sir James Munby does not mention !
Freedom of speech does not exist for children in care .These bewildered children are all ruthlessly gagged by an oppressive State ………….
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Parents are grandparents have become desperate,they can’t prove this any other way. If there is criminal activity taking place by so called professionals and especially unqualified staff surely there going to feel that’s the only way to one day get justice. Having a child taken with no orders and refusing to tell parents where the child is or allegations/or in very few cases where there’s numerous judges hearing a case. Not told about hearings and agenda admitting the child was always going for adoption is child abuse and child abduction not child protection. The child sustains injuries and contact reports go missing where concerns were raised but the courts wouldn’t have known that part as not shown the full reports. Expert witness a trainee social worker (didn’t qualify while didn’t inform child guardian she took Baby to second placement) how 2 placements can be justified I will never know as judge 1 twin tracked first hearings with only the LA. Nobody wants to break the law,but if your desperate to prove something I’d take the consequences I’m sorry,if it meant the parents would be allowed a right to a fair hearing/trial not threatened if had another child would also be taken/ and stopping the harassment of invading their privacy and life. A right to speak and not told not to.
We need a full investigation into local authorities care of social services urgently. A child is taken on a risk and comes to serious harm or death in foster care it’s unacceptable. Many don’t like where he’s telling the truth,but thousands appreciate it. It should be in the best interest of the child and maybe a lot more could learn from the presiding president .
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covert recordings should be allowed as evidence because there is plenty of evidence to show that social workers and family court judges are conspiring against parents and breaking the law.
the time will have to come when as in the USA Social worker are jailed for corruption and perjury. Judges and others should also face the same action. its the only way to stamp out the corruption that feeds the Adoption Racketeers who are just as guilty of the same crimes.
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Reblogged this on Musings of a Penpusher and commented:
Covert recordings in abuse situations have proved invaluable to investigative journalists when recording proof of suspected abuse among older people, so why not in situations involving children?
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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And why should we trust the Family Justice Council to “investigate” anything.
In court, Sir James Munby was asked to send the case in question to the FJC to evaluate the misconduct of professionals that was evidenced by the covert recordings, ignored by the High Court in H vs Dent and Others, ignored by HHJ Bellamy at trial. Bellamy had focused twenty pages of his trial judgment on the covert recordings; if only he had been so interested in obtaining advice from various, experienced clinical psychologists on what to do about parental alienation, which this case was. The covert files were all given to Munby and he seems the latest to engage in covering this case up.
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Every once in while Mr. Munby comes up with some kind of idiotic plan but, never gets anywhere and it makes any difference with the utterly dysfunctional, inhumane and disproportionate Family Justice System. Abuse of Powers by Judges, CAFCASS, LA’s and OS’s are all Covered-up to hide the Miscarriage of Justice. Judges also withholds publications of Judgements which contains positives about “Genuine Innocent Parents”. We also have NO Human Rights as well.
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