Social Work England -v- BPQ

Administrative CourtHigh CourtKing's Bench DivisionAnonymity Order

Claim no: AC-2025-LDS-000232

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

16 October 2025

In the matter of an application to extend an interim order under paragraph 14(2) of the Social Workers Regulations 2018 (as amended)

Before:

Mrs Justice Hill DBE

Between:

Social Work England

-v-

BPQ

Anonymity Order

On consideration of the application by the Claimant dated 16 October 2025 for an order that the hearing listed for 12 November 2025 be held in private and for related orders for anonymity and in respect of access to the court file

And upon the application having been made on notice, but there being no evidence on CE file that the Defendant has indicated a view on the application

ORDER by The Honourable Mrs Justice Hill DBE

Anonymity and related orders

  1. The application for anonymity for the Defendant, their two children and their former partner, and consequential restrictions on the court file, is granted.
  2. Accordingly, under the Court’s inherent jurisdiction and pursuant to s.6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and CPR 39.2(4) (i) the name of the Defendant, their registration number with the Claimant, and the names of their two children and former partner are to be withheld from the public and must not be disclosed in any proceedings in public; and (ii) the Defendant is to be referred to orally and in writing as “BPQ“, the children should be referred to as “Child A” and “Child B” and the Defendant’s former partner should be referred to as “Person A”.
  3. Further, pursuant to s.11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, there must be no publication of the identities of the Defendant, the two children or the Defendant’s former partner or of any matter likely to lead to the identification of those individuals in any report of, or otherwise in connection with, these proceedings.
  4. Pursuant to CPR 5.4C(2), any application to obtain documents other than the claim form, judgment or order made by a non-party under CPR 5.4C is to be made on at least 14 days’ notice to the parties. The parties shall be given the opportunity to respond to the application (including proposals for editing / redacting sensitive content). Any person has liberty to apply in writing on notice to the parties to abridge the time for notice.
  5. Unless the Court grants permission under CPR 5.4C(6), no non-party many obtain a copy of any unredacted statement of case.
  6. Any judgment in this case should follow the Practice Guidance issued by the President of the Family Division in December 2018 on the avoidance of the identification of children in judgments.
  7. Pursuant to CPR 39.2(5) and the Practice Guidance: Publication of Privacy and Anonymity Orders dated 16 April 2019 a copy of this order shall be published on the Judicial Website of the High Court of Justice (www.judiciary.uk).

Private hearing

  1. The application for a private hearing under CPR 39.2(3) is refused.

Costs

  1. There is no order for costs.

Variation or discharge of this order

  1. Any person wishing to vary or discharge this order must make an application, served on each party.

Reasons

  1. Anonymity has been granted because this case concerns serious allegations of abuse and sexual offences in relation to the Defendant’s two children and former partner. All these matters engage the private and family life of the Defendant, their children and former partner.
  2. There is not, in my judgment, sufficient general public interest in disclosure of any matter which identifies these individuals to justify any resulting curtailment of their rights to respect for their private and family life. There are accordingly compelling reasons for the limited derogations from the principle of open justice that anonymity involves.
  3. I have assigned the Defendant a random cipher, avoiding their real initials.
  4. Given the matters set out in [1] of the reasons above, some restrictions on access to the court file are appropriate to ensure that the anonymity order is effective.
  5. Given these comprehensive anonymity and court file restrictions, I am not persuaded that a fully private hearing is necessary.
  6. Any derogation from open justice is exceptional and will be based on necessity. The party seeking to restrict the operation of the open justice principle bears the burden of establishing that restriction is necessary on the basis of clear and cogent evidence. The Claimant has not persuaded me that such a restriction is appropriate here.
  7. The Claimant took me to no precedent for such an order being made in cases of this nature.
  8. As the Claimant is aware, in several cases of this kind the idea of a fully private hearing has been considered but was ultimately either not pursued or was not found to be necessary: see, for example, Social Work England v CW [2022] EWHC 2583 (Admin), Social Work England v Farnham [2023] EWHC 2455 (Admin), Social Work England v Morgan [2023] EWHC 2458 (Admin), Social Work England v Gardener [2024] EWHC 186 (Admin), Social Work England v PEF (AC-2025-LDS-000014) and Social Work England v WZK (AC-2025-LDS-000224).
  9. Indeed, in this case, an application for a private hearing (of the last High Court application for an extension to the Interim Order) was refused by HHJ Jackson on 17 May 2024 and was not renewed at the hearing
  10. In all the cases cited at [8] above, the anonymity restrictions and the restrictions on access to the court file, together with sensible limits on what is said in open court, were considered sufficient to protect the privacy interests at stake, without further intruding on the open justice principle by ordering a fully private hearing.
  11. I take a similar view in his case.
  12. The Judge will have the papers and can be referred to appropriate parts of them. It ought not to be necessary for particular incidents to be described in detail in open court at the hearing.
  13. If there remain real concerns about the need to refer to particular parts of the evidence in open court, it is possible to conduct a short closed hearing for just those parts, gisting the content of the closed hearing once the open hearing resumes. However, I note that in some of the cases mentioned at [8] above, the idea of even a partly private hearing also proved unnecessary. If such a course is considered necessary, the application can be made to the Judge conducting the hearing.