PT-2025-000706 - [2025] EWHC 2928 (Ch)

Mr Cumming submitted that there was nothing in the PMC case to support a conclusion that Deputy Master Jefferis’s order should not have been made or should not be continued.

He pointed out that PMC concerns the court’s power to make withholding, reporting restriction and anonymity orders in proceedings for court approval of a compromise on behalf of a protected person under CPR r.21.10.

Prior to PMC, the leading authority on the proper approach to be taken to such orders in such proceedings was JX MX v Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust [2015] EWCA Civ 96. At [34-35] of his judgment in Dartford, Moore-Bick LJ set out guidance that first instance judges have subsequently followed.

This guidance is summarised at [54] of the judgment of the Master of the Rolls in PMC. Relevantly:

In PMC, the Master of the Rolls essentially endorsed the approach that Moore-Bick LJ had set out in Dartford, but suggested modifying the two aspects of Moore-Bick LJ’s guidance that are noted in the previous paragraph:

The Master of the Rolls also observed, at [106], that:

“All these cases and any strictly necessary derogation from the open justice principle that may be appropriate in them will be entirely dependent on their particular facts. It is worth mentioning, however, that those making applications for an [anonymity order] would be well advised to do so as early as reasonably practicable in the litigation process”.

Mr Cumming submitted that in appropriate circumstances:

Mr Cumming went on to submit that the substantive application pursued in these proceedings is not an application for approval of a compromise under CPR r.21.10. He said that even if the approach to be taken to an application for an anonymity order in the context of an application under CPR r.21.10 were to be applied directly in relation to the claimants’ application for an anonymity order in these proceedings, the Court of Appeal’s judgment in PMC offers no ground on which to impugn the process that led to Deputy Master Jefferis making his order of 30 July 2025 or to call into question whether it should be continued. There was no need for the application for the anonymity order to be heard at a public hearing, or to notify in advance the media or any third party of that application, as [102] of the judgment in PMC makes clear.

Although Deputy Master Jefferis’s order dated 30 July 2025 was not placed on the Judiciary website, CPR r.39.2(5) does not (i) impose any obligation on a party that successfully obtains an anonymity order to procure that it is published on the Judiciary website, (ii) make or require an anonymity order to be conditional upon such publication, or (iii) otherwise require a party seeking such an order to undertake to procure such publication. Accordingly its non-publication on that website cannot impugn or undermine the appropriateness or the effectiveness of the order dated 30 July 2025.

The claimants recognise that publication of an anonymity order on the Judiciary’s website is an important part of the way in which the open justice principle should be protected and that CPR r.39.2(5) stipulates that anonymity orders should be so published.

Accordingly Mr Cumming said that Deputy Master Jefferis’s order dated 30 July 2025 should be continued in respect of these proceeding and the claimants suggest that it would also be appropriate to direct specifically that a suitably anonymised version of the anonymity order (as continued) should be advertised on the Judiciary website forthwith, and should expressly provide that any person may apply to set aside, or to vary, the anonymity order on notice to the Trustee’s solicitors.

Counsel submitted a draft anonymity order in which the names of the Trustees are included in the heading providing that: