Privacy or publication? Walker v Goodman

Privacy is power. Or perhaps 'publicity is power' would have been more appropriate for this case.

Being a fan of the beautiful game, my interest was piqued when reading the judgment of Walker v Goodman [2024] EWFC 212.  Kyle Walker, the Manchester City footballer and (at the time) England vice-captain, had had two children, aged 4 and 1, with Lauryn Goodman, outside of his marriage and Ms Goodman issued family court proceedings for their financial support. This garnered some media interest.

Normally there is an expectation of privacy in financial remedy proceedings. As a minimum, those in the public eye especially consider their private affairs should be anonymised in judgments.

But publicity is a double-edged sword. Once the "genie is out of the bottle" both parties lose something. The party looking for protection cannot recapture the released genie. The party looking to leverage publicity loses their negotiation tool.

Most family lawyers would, one expects pride themselves on maintaining their client's privacy. It is fundamental to what we do.

However, an unusual aspect of this case was that Mr Walker's legal team supported the press's application that the proceedings should be published without redaction or anonymisation. Ms Goodman was arguing the opposite.

Ms Goodman had courted such attention from the press through social media and displays designed to capture the newspapers' imagination, such that the Judge concluded to impose reporting restrictions would be counter intuitive.

The couple had already put so much information into the public domain that a restriction on reporting would not protect the children whose privacy had already been impeded and may instead have exposed the court to ridicule. 

The Judge was particularly taken with Ms Goodman's decision to visit the European football championship being only too willing to be photographed with her son dressed in an England football shirt with the name 'Daddy' on the back. Her request for reporting restrictions sat at odds with such behaviour.

For Mr Walker, his aim was to rebuild his relationship with his wife and children from the marriage and he had been clear he did not wish to pursue a relationship with the children he had with Ms Goodman. The judge at first instance made a generous financial award for the children under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989, which Ms Goodman appealed. 

It did not go unnoticed by the Judge at the final hearing that Ms Goodman had already been able to leverage substantial increases in housing provision in the original order by threatening to go public on the paternity issue. Having seemed unconcerned about privacy when it suited her at different points in the proceedings, it was quixotic that Ms Goodman then sought publicity restrictions when it came to the final order. Mr Walker, for his part, appeared to acknowledge that the damage had been done, given the prevalence of reporting in the media about what he had hoped would remain confidential.

Ultimately, most of Ms Goodman's requests for additional provision were refused and the judge made an order for 'global child maintenance' at £12,500 per month, plus considerable incidentals related to, the house, furniture, car and the direct payment of nursery and school fees. 

A housing provision (already ordered) was to be made available to Ms Goodman of £1.85m, such sum to be repaid to Mr Walker when the children reached a certain age or, earlier if Ms Goodman cohabited with or married another person. In the event, Mr Walker purchased a home in excess of this sum, for £2.4m.

It would be fascinating to know, whether the court would have endorsed the provision, had Mr Walker's representatives tried to include a clause making the higher housing fund offer contingent on Ms Goodman not going public (in the same way that she did).

One thing is for certain. The Court is going to be grappling more often with balancing transparency and privacy issues which, unusually in this case, were weighted heavily on the side of publication.

Most cases are less clear cut and will require expert legal advice in balancing how the court is likely to approach such competing aims. We are fortunate at Withers having leading specialist teams in both Family and Reputation Management law who can handle such complex considerations swiftly, collaboratively and all within a single 'club'.