FZW -v- Bristol City Council (anonymity order)

Administrative CourtHigh CourtKing's Bench DivisionAnonymity Order

Case number: AC-2025-CDF-000150

In the High Court of Justice
King’s Bench Division
Administrative Court

2 January 2026

Before:

His Honour Judge Keyser KC

Between:

THE KING on the application of
FZW

-v-

Bristol City Council

Order

Notification of Judge’s Decision (CPR 54.11, 54.12)

Following consideration of the documents filed by the Claimant, the Defendant’s Acknowledgement of Service and Summary Grounds of Defence and the Claimant’s Reply

ORDER BY HIS HONOUR JUDGE KEYSER KC
SITTING AS A JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT

  1. Permission to apply for judicial review: Permission is granted on both grounds.
  2. Expedition: The hearing of the claim is expedited. The hearing is to be listed no later than 24 March 2025.
  3. Case Management Directions:
    a) The Defendant must, within 23 days of the date of service of this Order, file and serve (i) Detailed Grounds for contesting the claim or supporting it on additional grounds and (ii) any written evidence to be relied on.
    b) The Defendant may comply with sub-paragraph (a)(i) above by filing and serving a document which states that its Summary Grounds are to stand as the Detailed Grounds required by CPR 54.14.
    c) Any application by the Claimant to serve evidence in reply must be filed and served, together with a copy of that evidence, within 7 days of the date on which the Defendant serves evidence pursuant to (a) above.
    d) The parties must agree the contents of the hearing bundle. An electronic version of the bundle must be prepared and lodged, in accordance with the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide Chapter 21 and the Guidance on the Administrative Court website, not less than 21 days before the date of the substantive hearing. The parties must, if requested by the Court, lodge 2 hard-copy versions of the hearing bundle.
    e) The Claimant must file and serve a Skeleton Argument (maximum 25 pages), complying with CPR 54 PD para. 15 and the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide paras 20.1 to 20.3, not less than 14 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
    f) The Defendant must file and serve a Skeleton Argument (maximum 25 pages), complying with CPR 54 PD para. 15 and the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide paras 20.1 to 20.3, not less than 7 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
    g) The parties must agree the contents of a bundle containing the authorities to be referred to at the hearing. An electronic version of the bundle must be prepared in accordance with the Guidance on the Administrative Court website. The parties must, if requested by the Court, prepare a hard-copy version of the authorities bundle. The electronic version of the bundle and if requested, the hard copy version of the bundle, must be lodged with the Court not less than 3 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
    h) The time estimate for the substantive hearing is 1 day. If either party considers that this time estimate should be varied, they must inform the court as soon as possible.

4.      Anonymity:

(a)    The names of the Claimant and the Claimant’s sister be withheld from the public and must not be disclosed in any proceedings in public. 

(b)    The Claimant be referred to orally and in writing as shown in the heading of this Order.

(c)    The Claimant’s sister be referred to orally and in writing as “MSW”.

(d)    Pursuant to s. 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, there must be no publication of the identity of the Claimant or of her sister, or of any matter likely to lead to the identification of the Claimant or her sister in any report of, or otherwise in connection with, these proceedings. 

OBSERVATIONS AND REASONS

  1. The Grounds surmount the low threshold of reasonable arguability.
  2. The circumstances of the case merit some modest expedition.
  3. The personal circumstances of the Claimant are such as, in the interests of her reasonable entitlement to privacy, to justify the very modest restriction on public access to information provided for by paragraph 4.