A, Re

I am sitting as a Judge of the Family Court today hearing public law proceedings which concern child A. The proceedings involve an application for public law orders brought by the London Borough of Harrow, the Applicant in these proceedings, which began in the Family Court and were transferred by the order of MacDonald J to be heard by a High Court Judge sitting in the Family Court because of their complexity.

The First Respondent to the application is the mother of child A. Her whereabouts are not clear, but she is currently believed to be in southern Asia and, whilst there has been communication with her, to date she has played no part in these proceedings. The Second Respondent is X who is said to be the Great Aunt of child A. The Third Respondent is Y. He is said to be the Great Uncle of child A. The child is also joined as a party and is represented by her Cafcass Guardian.

These public law proceedings have been underway for some time and have been case managed by me since the end of last year. As is usual in public law proceedings in the Family Court, an interim threshold document was filed by the applicant. The local authority have taken some time to refine that document and a final threshold document, dated 24 February 2026, was produced for a case management hearing before me which took place in April of 2026.

In that threshold document a number of significant and very serious factual matters are averred by the local authority against the Second and Third Respondents. In a section entitled “Child Trafficking”, there is an allegation that the second and third respondents trafficked child A to the United Kingdom in 2021. It is alleged that, in order to facilitate that trafficking, they have given false and inconsistent accounts to social workers and to others who visited the home. It is further alleged that, in order to facilitate the trafficking of child A into the United Kingdom, they have provided to immigration authorities, and in the course of these proceedings, documents which are said to be false. This involves fabricated birth certificates, adoption documentation and what is said to be fabricated documentation regarding child A’s birth certificate from a medical complex in Asia, documents which have been identified, it is said, by the National Document Fraud Unit to be false.

There is also an allegation that the third respondent is known to the National Crime Agency to have been associated with trafficking children dating back to 2006 and that he has been linked to a number of children who have arrived in the United Kingdom having travelled from Asia. Paragraph 7 of the threshold document additionally states that he has two convictions of fraud from 2008.

There is also a separate very serious averment that child A has been subjected to domestic servitude and physical abuse. It is said that she has been required to act as a domestic servant to the second and third respondents and that she has been physically abused, slapped and hit on the head with an iron. There are a number of other allegations relating to what the school have observed regarding child A’s hair having been cut to cause her humiliation, bruises on her face and verbal abuse.

I need not go through in any detail the response by the second and third respondents, but they deny those allegations. They deny there has been any child trafficking. They deny that child A was a domestic servant.

The local authority has filed the evidence upon which it relies. That is largely from witness evidence and exhibits to witness statements based on social services’ records. Much of that evidence records conversations that social workers and others have had with the family and others. There is also within that the evidence of a witness who was previously in a relationship with a member of the child A’s family. Her evidence supports the local authority’s allegations in respect of domestic servitude and would appear further to support allegations in respect of some form of trafficking.

At the case management hearing which took place in late April, I made a number of disclosure orders, many of which are not relevant for today’s purposes. However, amongst them was a disclosure order against the Metropolitan Police. The local authority made clear to me through leading counsel that if I made a disclosure order against the Metropolitan Police, it was very likely that an application would be made in response for Public Interest Immunity. In that order, I directed disclosure of all information held by the Metropolitan Police in respect of the second and third respondents. I made clear that, if any application in response to my disclosure order was to be made on the basis of public interest immunity by the Metropolitan Police Service, it should be made by a strictly timetabled date. There was a short application to extend that date, which I granted. The application for public interest immunity was made on a Form C2 application.

The order made clear to the parties in the Family Court proceedings that, if the application for public interest immunity was made, it would be determined today on 12 May 2025. The application has been made without notice to the parties, that is to say they have not seen the application or the evidence that underpins it, for obvious reasons, but the parties are aware obviously, because of the nature of my order and because of reasonable communication, that the public interest immunity application was made.

The local authority indicated that it was not necessary for them to attend today. I received yesterday a joint position statement by Leading Counsel for the Great Uncle and the Great Aunt which posited the possibility of them attending, but in reality the position that they were advocating was that, if public interest immunity was granted, they would want to make submissions about background matters at a later date. I did not consider it necessary for the parties to attend an OPEN hearing to make submissions on the legal framework.

In addition, since the case management hearing and the finalisation of the local authority’s threshold document, I have seen an application made by the Great Uncle which points out that the subject child, child A, has made allegations which she had not hitherto done against the Great Uncle and the Great Aunt and as a result there is an ongoing investigation by the Metropolitan Police. I know very little about that, but understandably the Great Aunt and the Great Uncle’s legal teams wish to understand the nature of that investigation, what disclosure they may receive, whether an Achieving Best Evidence interview has taken place and, if not, when it might take place. Ultimately, they wish for case management directions to understand how these recent disclosures may impact upon the fact finding hearing.

It is important that I add that the fact finding hearing was listed by me in late 2025 with a time estimate of ten days during the third and fourth week of June 2026. For very obvious reasons, any delay would be wholly contrary to child A’s interests, not least because her Great Aunt and Great Uncle dispute the factual findings and, by way of the interim care order made by a Circuit Judge, she now resides in foster care. So, delay is wholly contrary to the proper determination of these proceedings.

At the without notice hearing today, I have therefore proceeded on the basis of hearing submissions from the Metropolitan Police in line with my directions. Mr Pavlos Panayi KC has filed a very helpful skeleton argument and I have been provided, for the purposes of today’s application, with a bundle of documentation that includes three witness statements, two from Detective Inspectors in different branches of the Metropolitan Police and a witness statement with a number of exhibits from an Acting Detective Inspector who also works for the Metropolitan Police.

There is not a significant issue in respect of the documents exhibited to the two Detective Inspectors’ exhibits because much of that information in fact comes from the local authority and relates to events of ten or 15 years ago. It has not been submitted on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service that public interest immunity relates to that information, but there is sensitivity with names, dates of birth, passport numbers, addresses and other information.

I have looked at the redacted and unredacted material with the assistance of Mr Panayi today, and I am satisfied that redaction is necessary and appropriate, but it does seem to me that the documents have been overly redacted and, therefore, with the agreement of Mr Panayi, that will be reviewed and revised with the aim of reducing the amount of redaction which is necessary. Those underlying documents will, therefore, be disclosed to the parties in the proceedings. If I need to hear any further argument regarding the nature and necessity of the redaction, I will be in a position to do so.

That leaves the issue of the application for public interest immunity. I say a little about the law. This is not an application, obviously, by a Minister, so there is not the formal certificate that one would expect to see in a case of that nature, but I have the witness statement and the skeleton argument which sets out the basis upon which public interest immunity is asserted.

The first question I should consider, applying the well-known three stage test identified by Lord Templeman in R v Chief Constable of the West Midlands Police, ex parte Wiley [1995] 1 AC 274 is whether the material passes the threshold test for disclosure in the relevant proceedings.

In my judgment, that matter has already been dealt with because, as of April 2026 I made a disclosure order and it seemed to me that it was necessary for the Family Court proceedings to have any documentation held by the police in respect of the second and third respondents. Having now seen the underlying material, I am satisfied it is relevant. There is an issue about the weight that can be attached to the records held, but the information is relevant to the issues I have identified in the contested threshold and it seems to me that, subject to the question of public interest immunity, that information is disclosable.

The second and third stages of the Wiley test are, therefore, important. Wiley is a case from some years ago. However, there is a very helpful summary of the law set out in the more recent case of Al Rawi & Ors v The Security Service and Ors [2011] UKSC 34; [2012] 1 AC 531. That helpful summary is provided by Lord Clarke at paragraph 145 of that judgment. Lord Clarke dissented, but there is no disagreement that he accurately set out the law in respect of PII as follows:

“(i)

A claim for PII must ordinarily be supported by a certificate signed by the appropriate minister relating to the individual documents in question …

(ii)

Disclosure of documents which ought otherwise to be disclosed under CPR Part 31 may only be refused if the court concludes that the public interest which demands that the evidence be withheld outweighs the public interest in the administration of justice.

(iii)

In making that decision, the court may inspect the documents … This must necessarily be done in an ex parte process from which the party seeking disclosure may properly be excluded. Otherwise the very purpose of the application for PII would be defeated …

(iv)

In making its decision, the court should consider what safeguards may be imposed to permit the disclosure of the material. These might include, for example, holding all or part of the hearing in camera; requiring express undertakings of confidentiality from those to whom documents are disclosed; restricting the number of copies of a document that could be taken, or the circumstances in which documents could be inspected (e.g. requiring the Claimant and his legal team to attend at a particular location to read sensitive material); or requiring the unique numbering of any copy of a sensitive document.

(v)

Even where a complete document cannot be disclosed it may be possible to produce relevant extracts, or to summarise the relevant effect of the material …

(vi)

If the public interest in withholding the evidence does not outweigh the public interest in the administration of justice, the document must be disclosed unless the party who has possession of the document concedes the issue to which it relates …”

The Acting Detective Inspector’s evidence sets out, at paragraphs 9 to 13, the reasons why the real harm test is met. I have considered that carefully. I was very helpfully invited by Mr Panayi to hear evidence from the Acting Detective Inspector, but I am satisfied that it is not necessary to do so. It is clear that there is plainly a real risk of harm to the public interest. That risk is not negligible or fanciful and there is clearly, in my judgment, disclosure that will cause real or serious harm or prejudice. That is for the reasons set out in the Acting Detective Inspector’s CLOSED witness statement. It is not necessary for me to say any more in this OPEN judgment because the reasons are obvious.

Of course, it is for the police to assess that risk of harm, and it is also for them, in the first place, to consider the third aspect of the Wiley test, that is, in applying the real damage test, the final question is whether the public interest in non-disclosure is outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the material for the purpose of doing justice in the proceedings. This is, as I have already referred to, often referenced as the “Wiley balance”. But ultimately this balancing exercise is for the court.

I should consider a number of factors, including the seriousness of the matter at stake in the proceedings, the significance and relevance of the evidence, the importance of the public interest claimed, the nature and degree of risk to the public interest from disclosure and the nature of the litigation. As is clear from this OPEN judgment, these are proceedings in the Family Court. They concern the wellbeing and safety of a vulnerable child. The seriousness of the matters are very considerable both from the perspective of the child in respect of the allegations that are made that she had been both trafficked and made a domestic servant, but the seriousness of the matters also includes the risk of serious prejudice in the Acting Detective Inspector’s witness statement.

I remind myself the Great Aunt and Great Uncle deny the allegations made against them in the Family Court. Matters are very serious.

The underlying information is relevant to the allegations in the threshold. Of that there is no doubt. As I say, arguments may well be made about the weight to be attached to that, and I recognise that.

The importance of the public interest is clear. They are set out in the Acting Detective Inspector’s witness statement. As I say, I have not needed to probe that because it is obvious what the risk of harm is and the impact that that could have on the Metropolitan Police’s ability to carry out their proper law enforcement business.

The nature and degree of risk to the public interest from disclosure is extremely high.

So, as I weigh up the third Wiley balancing test, I am entirely satisfied that this is an appropriate case where public interest immunity attaches and non-disclosure is necessary and that that outweighs the second part of the balance of doing justice in the proceedings.

It is important to say that the outcome of the grant of public interest immunity is that all of this underlying material which attaches public interest immunity forms no part of the Family Court proceedings. At this stage, as I have indicated in helpful exchanges with Mr Panayi, I will hold a hearing in OPEN with the parties at which I will consider whether this is one of those exceptional cases where Special Advocates and CLOSED material proceedings should be invoked. There are a number of factors relevant to that, including what may transpire in respect of ongoing investigations by the Metropolitan Police, but it seems to me it is proper that the parties are informed that public interest immunity has been granted over the material and, at this stage, it will not be disclosed and they can make submissions on a possible closed material procedure and the process for that, the impact on the two week fact-finding of the last two weeks of June and also, importantly, their considerations regarding who would fund the Special Advocates, if needed. This is important not least because there is case law that suggests that the body that applies for public interest immunity should bear the cost, and I am alive to the fact that the cost could be considerable in these proceedings. I would have to hear submissions about the number of Special Advocates. I am also very concerned about the impact of that on the existing two week fixture.

Those are my reasons for granting public interest immunity on the basis of the evidence provided to me today.

I will request a transcript of this judgment be provided to me. It will be approved and provided to the Applicant Metropolitan Police. I will also draft an OPEN judgment so that what has taken place today is available to the parties, although of course they will not know of the reasons why public interest immunity has been granted because, otherwise, that would defeat the very purpose of this without notice application, which was entirely properly brought by the Metropolitan Police. Those are my reasons for making orders today.