Courting Coverage: our new initiative to increase family court reporting

As the saying goes, justice must not only be done – it must also be seen to be done.

In the family courts of England and Wales, justice is rarely seen. While real progress has been made towards making the courts more transparent, only a tiny fraction of cases are actually reported on.

Every day, judges in these courts make life-changing decisions relating to some of the most contentious issues in society. But few people beyond those directly involved know what has happened. We want that to change.

Courting Coverage is a new initiative that aims to link people who want their cases to be covered by the media with journalists who want to do family court reporting.

The premise is simple. We’re looking for journalists in England and Wales who are keen to cover family court cases (the landmark transparency rules do not apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland).

Everyone who signs up will be included in an interactive map published on our website. And that map can then be used by someone going through court proceedings to find the contact details of a local reporter where they live (or where their case is being heard).

One of the major issues currently preventing greater coverage of family courts is twofold: that reporters don’t know which cases to cover, and the people involved in proceedings don’t know how to effectively alert journalists.

Unlike with other parts of the justice system, reporters aren’t able to check court listings to determine what a case involves and whether it’s worth their time. And it’s not feasible to spend a day in court on the off-chance of finding a newsworthy case. We hope our scheme will help overcome these hurdles.

Julie Doughty of the Transparency Project, a charity set up to increase public understanding of family courts, said Courting Coverage would be a “groundbreaking step forward in increasing public understanding of family justice”.

“We believe that open reporting is essential to help address perceptions that family courts are closed and secretive,” she said. “Although a reporter attending makes no difference to the outcome of a case, we have been told by some parents that they felt the hearing was fairer because we were there.”

Lucy Reed KC, a barrister and trustee of the Transparency Project, said: “I think this resource could make a big difference. There are many parents, both with and without lawyer support, who tell us they would feel safer if an independent observer was at court and actively welcome the attendance of the journalists or legal bloggers. At the moment most of them are unable to obtain that reassurance.”

Three years ago we launched Family Court Files, a project led by our reporter Hannah Summers, to shine a light on the family justice system. We wanted to make use of new transparency powers, which included giving journalists greater access to documents.

Those powers – which require a judge to grant a transparency order – were trialled in three court centres before being extended in January 2024 and rolled out nationally a year later.

Hannah’s reporting has informed new guidance to protect victims of domestic abuse and helped prompt a ban on the use of unregulated experts. She won permission to name a serial rapist and revealed how abusers are using “parental alienation”, a controversial pseudoscience, to turn the tables on their victims.

We also teamed up with experienced family court reporter Louise Tickle to provide training and online resources to other newsrooms, and this year we launched a mentoring scheme led by Hannah.

Courting Coverage is open to all accredited journalists in England and Wales, staff and freelance. It will officially launch later this year once the first tranche of reporters are on board.

There will be no charge or any other obligation for a reporter signing up to the initiative. All we ask is that, if it results in a published story, the scheme is credited in the copy. And reporters don’t have to be limited to a particular area: cases can also be covered remotely.

For people who might want a reporter to cover a case that has already been heard, please bear in mind that journalists aren’t typically able to report on a case unless a transparency order has been granted at the start of proceedings.