Failure to keep information confidential led to significant distress

What happened

Mrs M was involved in a court case relating to contact arrangements for her children. Because Mrs M had made allegations of domestic abuse against her former partner, she asked Cafcass to keep her current whereabouts confidential. Cafcass agreed to do this. However, a report it later wrote to the court included information which was shared with Mrs M's former partner and which would have made it easy for him to trace her current address.

When Mrs M complained to Cafcass about this, it apologised for the error. However, Mrs M did not feel Cafcass' apology went far enough given the distress she had suffered as a result of its error. Mrs M also complained to Cafcass about other aspects of the report. However, Cafcass said that if she did not agree with the report, she could challenge the contents in court.

What we found

We partly upheld Mrs M's complaint.

We were pleased that Cafcass recognised its error, but agreed with Mrs M that it had not done enough to put matters right for her. Although we found no evidence that Mrs M had come to harm as a result of the information being released, she continued to live with the prospect that this may happen in future. This was an injustice to her.

Cafcass later explained to us that, in hindsight, it should not have promised to keep Mrs M's details confidential. This was because it was for the court to decide what could or could not be kept confidential. While we understood Cafcass' general point, it was not relevant in Mrs M's case, as there was no evidence the court had asked for the information to be included in Cafcass' report. As such, Cafcass should not have included this information in its report.

We did not uphold Mrs M's complaint about the other aspects of the Cafcass report. This was because we agreed with Cafcass that these were issues Mrs M should rightly challenge in court.

Putting it right

Cafcass apologised again to Mrs M and paid her £2,000 because of the distress she had suffered.