The Man With No Name – dad jailed anonymously in war over children

Senior judges are investigating after a dad of three was anonymously sentenced to prison in a battle over his children.

Now his hearing – deep in the sinister bowels of the Family Court system – has been highlighted as a return of the ‘hanging’ judges who are willing to ‘secretly’ take away a parents name and claim it is to protect the children.

The 15-month suspended sentence was handed down to the nameless father despite rules saying that judges they should never give prison or suspended terms without naming the individual.

The judgement came after the man repeatedly defied orders to stop trying to make contact with his sons.

Open justice campaigners have criticised the decision and senior judges launched an inquiry into the suppression of the father’s name.

The ruling by Judge Gillian Matthews QC is said to be against open justice rules from eight years ago that say no adult should be handed a prison sentence in the family courts without being publicly named.

The order that family courts and the linked Court of Protection should stop sending adults to jail in secret was laid down in 2013 after the case of Wanda Maddocks – a woman sentenced to jail anonymously after she tried to remove her father from a care home where she thought he was in danger.

Judge Matthews identified the father only as JE and her ruling is headed: ‘Anonymisation applies.’

She said the ‘judgment was delivered in private,’ and that ‘the anonymity of the children and members of their family must be strictly preserved’.

Officials said Judge Matthews’ decision would be removed from the published roll of court rulings until she had explained why the sentencing was anonymous.

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