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National
Simon Meechan

Family court hearings at Court of Appeal to be live-streamed

Family court hearings will be available to watch to the public on live internet streams.

The Ministry of Justice will make family hearings at the Court of Appeal available to watch online in an attempt to make the justice system more transparent and to "increase public understanding".

It follows a successful pilot in 2018.

Cases which have reporting restrictions or special measures to protect witnesses will not be live-streamed, while hearings will be broadcast with a time delay and can be stopped by court staff if necessary.

Parties involved will be told advanced if their case is set to be broadcast and offered the chance to object.

The use of cameras and electronic recording equipment is usually banned from court rooms, but recently the Ministry of Justice has allowed sentencing remarks from some criminal court hearings to be filmed and broadcast.

Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said: "Every day family court judges do outstanding work making difficult decisions in highly emotive cases, often involving children.

"By working with the judiciary on innovative pilots such as this we are making the system as transparent as possible, with the right safeguards in place.

"This builds on our recent action to improve public understanding of our justice system, including by allowing television cameras to broadcast sentencing remarks from crown courts for the first time."

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