CA-2024-001383-B - [2025] EWCA Civ 1065

The Court did, however, consider a letter written by the Consultant Psychologist on 26 June 2025 which was produced in support of the adjournment application, and which contained further information of some relevance to ANL’s application. There is no dispute about this expert’s credentials or his independence, and the fact that this evidence is not in a formal report and was produced in the manner in which it was, is a matter that goes to its weight rather than its admissibility. In the letter he explained that his prior assessment of SA over a prolonged period between December 2019 and March 2021 involved “extensive” clinical interviews, functional capacity assessments, collateral reports from involved professionals, and psychometric testing. He then said that during the course of his assessment:

“it became evident that exposure to public scrutiny and reputational risk has historically been a significant trigger for deterioration in [SA’s] mental health. This was particularly evident during and following the [historic legal proceedings] brought against her, during which she was subjected to intense and negative press coverage. Following that period, she experienced a significant psychiatric decline, which included delusional beliefs, paranoia, hospital admissions under the Mental Health Act and episodes of psychotic behaviour.”

After describing those episodes of psychosis in more detail, which it is unnecessary to repeat save to note that they included suicidal ideation, the Consultant Psychologist then said this:

“The historical link between adverse publicity and her mental health deterioration is well documented across the reports reviewed, and corroborated by multiple professionals involved in her care. Notably the events that followed the … publicity [at the time of the historic legal proceedings] included psychiatric hospitalisations, safeguarding concerns and substantial impairment in her functioning and insight”.

He expressed the clinical opinion that any re-exposure to press scrutiny, particularly scrutiny of the nature likely to arise were the anonymity order to be lifted, would represent a serious risk to SA’s psychological stability and could precipitate a significant relapse which could include recurrence of psychosis, exacerbation of paranoid ideation, increased suicidality and deterioration in her ability to function independently. In the light of the chronic nature of her psychiatric condition, the presence of residual functional and cognitive vulnerabilities and the history of trauma linked to reputational exposure, he “strongly advised” that the anonymity order remain in place, at least until a full clinical report could be completed and reviewed.

Ms Palin submitted that adverse publicity and press criticism will often cause embarrassment, anxiety and distress. They may even have an adverse impact on the mental health of those involved in litigation which is the subject of reporting, and the fact that such publicity could trigger a depressive episode, even a serious one, would not normally suffice to justify interference with the principle of open justice. There was a strong public interest in the exposure of immigration fraud, and it was harmful to withhold from the public information about the way in which the Secretary of State and the tribunals and court had resolved some of the issues of general public interest raised by the judgment in the historic legal proceedings. The decisions of the two tribunals now showed that some of the conclusions reached by the judge in those proceedings, based on the more limited evidence adduced in that case, were erroneous. This case was not one of moving SA from the shadows into the floodlight of publicity but rather a matter of widening the lens of publicity, so that it included how the issues concerning her case which were already in the public domain, including questions about the veracity of her claim to asylum, had been resolved.

Ms Palin accepted that it was relevant that SA had been found by the Court of Protection to lack capacity, but submitted that she has medical advisers who can assist her in preparing to deal with the impact on her of adverse publicity if she is identified. She described the medical evidence relied on by SA’s legal representatives as “generic” and submitted that it was neither clear nor cogent and that it did not enable the court to measure the harm that SA was likely to suffer in consequence of publicity against the Art 10 rights of the public and the press.

Mr Gajjar took issue with that description, pointing out that the FtT had accepted the medical evidence and the SSHD had not sought to challenge it. He stressed that SA’s condition is both chronic and incurable, although manageable with medication, and thus ongoing. Thus it was open to the court to place reliance on what was said by the medical professionals in 2021, 2022 and 2023. On that evidence, the episodes of significant deterioration in SA’s mental health have been triggered by adverse publicity or by fear of it. He accepted that if there were to be a significant improvement in her mental health in future, the issue could always be revisited, but on the evidence before the court at present he contended that there were well documented concerns articulated by a responsible medical professional (supported by similar concerns voiced in the past) that lifting the anonymity order could cause a very significant deterioration in her condition. That was enough to outweigh the public interest in the public being told that the Home Office and the tribunals and courts had addressed the false claim for asylum and revoked SA’s refugee status.

As to the fact that some of the information about SA is already in the public domain, Mr Gajjar described the bulk of the material, including the newspaper interview with SA, as “dated”. He pointed out that there was no evidence that the matters with which those reports were concerned had remained firmly in the public eye. He submitted that the 2022 articles about the public law case involving those with whom SA had previously been in dispute did not advance ANL’s case because they mainly focused upon matters which arose after the historic legal proceedings and which had nothing to do with her.