Police Disclosure in Family Law Proceedings

In this short video, UK Family Lawyer Ursula Rice answers your questions about Police Disclosure in Family Law Proceedings – where should you start, what should you ask for and what should you do when you get it?

No time to watch the video? Here’s the transcript:

Hello there, my name is Ursula Rice and I am a solicitor at Family First Solicitors in Oxford. Today I’m going to talk to you about police disclosure.

A lot of the time people will find this video because they want to know how they can obtain police disclosure in family proceedings or where do they start, what should they ask for and when they get it, what are they allowed to do with it? So those are the questions that I’m going to try and answer today.

So can you get police disclosure?

Yes, you can. How do you do that? You can directly ask the police if that’s what you wish to do but most people ask for police disclosure at the first appointment in their Children Act proceedings and that is because when you want police disclosure it’s usually for those kind of proceedings.

You could in my view ask for police disclosure if unusually you needed it in financial proceedings but the context of how I’m speaking to you about this is going to be about children proceedings.

So first dispute resolution hearing is when you should ask for it, and you need to explain to the court exactly what you want in as much detail as you can.

So for example, specific dates, who was present, where the disclosure or the incident will have taken place that’s subject to disclosure. For example, if you have shoulder numbers of the police officers involved, that is helpful as well. All police have shoulder numbers on their uniform and they are unique to that police officer. If you are not specific enough with the request, you may find that the police refuse to disclose to you.

A couple of other reasons that the police may refuse to disclose the information that you seek are because you’ve been too broad about what you’ve asked for, what you’ve asked for is too voluminous, it’s not reasonable, or it’s not relevant to proceedings. And the other, I would say, not common, but the reason that does happen in family proceedings is because to disclose to you would jeopardise a current investigation.

If that is the case, you will get an answer back from the police about that. So you will have as a general rule, you will have asked the court for the disclosure and the court will have permitted it. They will have issued a stand alone police disclosure order. which says this is what can be disclosed. This is the timeframe within which it must be disclosed. And it gives the chief constable of your area the opportunity to ask the court to change the order in some way in the next seven days. And that’s because the police didn’t have an opportunity to be heard about what this order was about. Obviously, they don’t turn up to every Children Act proceedings. You will have to pay for your police disclosure and all the forces have a protocol about police disclosure, which you need to look up and then you will see what their charges are.

Usually there’s a baseline charge of just under ninety pounds for two hours work.

That’s the minimum you’ll be charged. And then it goes on from there. Big disclosure is probably going to set you back five hundred pounds. Don’t forget to ask to share the costs.

Once you have your disclosure, you need to be careful in terms of disseminating it. You must not show it to everyone, you know, put it on Facebook or do anything that is inappropriate with it. You can show it to your barrister, a social worker, CAFCAS, experts who’ve been instructed in your proceedings, or anyone else that the court orders. And of course, you can show it to the court and the people in the proceedings.

If it is video disclosure, you will be made to make a promise about how you treat it, not to make copies, not to leave it in unlocked vehicles, to treat it respectfully and to be careful with it. Consequently, police disclosure is something that you can get, but you need to be careful with it.

Thank you for listening.

If you have any queries, don’t forget you can come and ask us to assist you. Our first appointment currently at the time of doing this video costs three hundred and sixty pounds and takes as long as it takes.

Thank you for watching and I hope it was helpful.