Jemimah Hendrick and George Lafazanides in Court of Appeal

Jemimah Hendrick (for the successful appellant, led by Joy Brereton KC, instructed by Dawson Cornwell and George Lafazanides (instructed by Machins Solicitors, in a notable Court of Appeal decision, which clarifies the limits of media access to family court materials.

In Re HMP [2025] EWCA Civ 824 the Court overturned the lower court’s decision, holding that the BBC should not have been granted access to documents from care proceedings that were only tangentially connected to its wider reporting aims. The judgment underscores that the open justice principle is not a free-standing right to access information from private proceedings. As restated in Cape v Dring, the test remains whether disclosure serves the core function of explaining court processes or ensuring judicial accountability—not whether the topic is of public interest more broadly.