Held, (1) Only a pilot reporter, who was a duly accredited representative of a news gathering or reporting organisation or duly authorised lawyer who might attend a hearing under FPR r 27.11, was permitted to report on proceedings and a transparency order made by the court restricted what could be reported once a particular hearing had been concluded. When deciding whether to make a transparency order and, if so, on what terms, a pilot court judge had to strike a balance between rights that favoured publication and the rights of the child to respect for its private and family life. Courts ought also to take into account the Transparency Reporting Pilot Guidance with template order attached. The approach to making such orders was, inter alia: (i) save in exceptional cases where it would be particularly difficult to achieve anonymity for the child, the terms of the transparency order would need to strike the right balance between rights under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, namely, the article 10 rights of publication and the article 8 rights of the child to anonymity; (ii) a transparency order did not exclude section 97(2) of the Children Act 1989, which made it a criminal offence to publish information likely to identify a child, placing a heavy burden on pilot reporters who were required not only to abide by the prohibitions on reporting the list of specific information set out in the order, but also to avoid the likelihood of jigsaw identification; (iii) the court could not dictate the detail of what reporters wrote or broadcast although the circumstances of the particular case might require that the reporting of specific information should be prohibited, such prohibitions being limited so as to avoid undue interference with article 10 rights particularly if there was a particularly strong public interest in it being reported; (iv) a transparency order could properly be made even if there were or might be pending criminal investigations or proceedings, but the template order would usually have to be revised to prevent reporting until the conclusion of those investigations or proceedings so as to avoid causing prejudice to them. Responsibility for ensuring that a pilot reporter was duly accredited rested with the court and the court had to be satisfied that the pilot reporters attending had read and understood the transparency order. It was the transparency order that permitted reporting since otherwise section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 prevented any publication of a private hearing. The reporting pilot scheme placed a heavy responsibility on pilot reporters since it would be over-burdensome on judges, and objectionable in principle, for the court to give detailed directions to pilot reporters about the content of their reports. Pilot reporters had to use their own professional judgment to ensure that their reporting complied with the law (paras 7, 10, 17, 20, 25, 26, 33, 43).

(2) The court having decided to treat the present case as if it was in the transparency reporting pilot scheme and with pilot reporters having attended the hearing, the template transparency order was adopted but, since each of the three mothers in the proceedings had been arrested and criminal investigations had been instigated, no reporting would be permitted until criminal proceedings against all three mothers had been concluded and/or the police or Crown Prosecution Service had determined that criminal proceedings would not be brought and no further action would be taken (paras 20, 22).