Conclusion
33.I am not persuaded that I should sanction disclosure of documents to the police in this case. 34.It would be improper for the Court to exercise its discretion in the absence of any evidence from the Applicant supporting its application. Supporting evidence is not merely a technical requirement, it is necessary in order for the Court to undertake the balancing exercise required, and it is necessary for the respondents to know the nature of the applications they are facing and make informed submissions in response.35.The applicant requests that I go through each of the documents in the file and make a decision about whether or not they are relevant to the investigation. I cannot realistically or fairly carry out that exercise because I have not been given evidence about the nature of the investigations (other than the headline), the status of the investigations, the information that the police hold already, the gaps in its knowledge, and why there is a need to fill those gaps by applying to the family court.36.Without a clear understanding of the investigations, I am not in a position to make an assessment of any particular document’s relevance to the investigation.37.The mother has admitted taking the covert recordings. She was the one who provided them to social services and to the police, and she admitted what she had done when interviewed by the police. The reasons given for wanting further information, as either ‘mitigation’ or ‘corroboration of defence’, are not explained and cannot on their own justify disclosure of material from the Family Court.38.In any event, there would appear to be sufficient information in the police’s possession to enable it to carry out an analysis of whether there is sufficient ‘mitigation’ in terms of the risk posed by the father to the mother to enable it to carry out an assessment of whether or not charges against her should be proceeded with. The father has been convicted of assault against the mother, is the subject of a lifetime restraining order, and protective orders in the Family Court. The police have attended MARAC meetings and have all the CCTV and audio material. 39.In deciding whether or not to order disclosure under rule 12.73(b) the Court is asked to exercise its discretion. The applicant has not set out in submissions that the Re EC checklist approach should be applied to private law as well as public law proceedings. But assuming the checklist does apply, the Court would need to carry out a balancing exercise, with reference to each of the Re EC checklist factors. It is not enough to have cut and paste the factors into a skeleton argument. I have not been provided with evidence or analysis to enable me to carry out that process.40.A key part of the balancing exercise would be to consider the impact upon the welfare of the children of disclosing material that was regarded within the Family Court as confidential. The documents would be disclosed to the police, to the Crown Prosecution Service, and the application is for the material to be used within any subsequent criminal proceedings, so they are likely to end up in the public domain. Any impact upon the mother is likely to have a significant impact on the welfare of the children. The application has no regard to this at all, and invites me to disclose documents merely on the basis that they may be relevant to their investigation.41.For all these reasons, the application for disclosure is refused.