In the wood-panelled courtroom, with low winter light filtering through high windows, our barrister sat down after making his final submissions, and Mr Justice Williams began to speak. It had taken us 14 months to reach this moment at the Royal Courts of Justice, to hear the high court judge’s decision on our application for disclosure of confidential documents in three sets of family court proceedings relating to the murdered schoolgirl Sara Sharif – and whether we would be allowed to publish the information they contained.
And for a few minutes, from a press freedom perspective, it seemed that things were going well: Williams gave what we believe is unprecedented permission for disclosure of dozens of documents.
