Angela fails to grasp the bleedin’ obvious…again

Well, Angie’s done it again: she seems utterly determined to ignore those pesky laws about confidentiality in family courts, and has posted yet another live-streamed Facebook video on the topic of “Baby H” and his parents.

She claims to have stepped down as the parents’ McKenzie friend: “Indeed I actually offered to leave the court when it was explained to me that if I took on the McKenzie friend’s within in camera, that I couldn’t report, I volunteered to leave the court and resume my role as journalist and the, erm…there was objections to that”.

No bloody doubt there were objections to that—what part of “you are not allowed to report on this case at all so please get out and stop clogging up the court system, thankyouverymuch I’m welcome I’m sure”, does Angela fail to grasp?

Nothing daunted, though, Angela says:

I’ve sat on it, just put a few updates since Thursday, and I feel like I’m going to burst. So I think my understanding is, in camera proceedings can only be reported as long as the parties concerned remain anonymous, and as long as an overview of orders and proceedings is given, not the nitty-gritty arguments of how orders were arrived at. So I’m pretty sure other than the few little human slip-ups I’ve made [such as naming the parents multiple times and publishing their names repeatedly on Facebook, but who’s counting?—Ed.], I’m pretty sure I’m walking the right side of that line. I’m pretty sure I would have been arrested by now if not.

And we’re pretty sure she’s very much not on the right side.

Funny about her belief that if she were on the “wrong side” of the line she’d have been arrested. We distinctly remember another Hoaxteader saying something very similar about a year ago, right before the proverbial knock on the door. But we digress.

As commenter Sir Henry Rawlinson put it, “Oh FFS! In the name of Christ Angie, just read a fucking law book you stupid, ignorant, feckless old fraud! No you fucking cannot report details of in camera proceedings you mad cow! – Basic knowledge! Really, secondary-school media studies basic knowledge!”

We know Angie is too bone-lazy to bother Googling anything as mundane as family court confidentiality, so we thought that as a public service we would do it for her. It took us approximately five seconds, well beyond Angie’s gnat-like attention span, but herewith: The Rules, per Ireland’s Courts Service:

Hearing of cases – the ‘in camera‘ rule

Family law cases are heard in private (in camera) to protect the privacy of the family. Only officers of the court, the parties to the case and their legal representatives, witnesses and such other people as the judge allows will be in the courtroom while the case is being heard.

Section 40 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act, 2004 allows solicitors, barristers, and certain other categories of people approved by the Minister for Justice and Equality to attend family law cases and publish reports. Part 2 (sections 3 to 12) of the Courts and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2013 allows bona fide representatives of the Press attend family law cases (subject to the right of the judge to exclude any such representatives) and to publish reports. The publication of reports of family law cases is allowed under these Acts on the strict condition that no names, addresses or any other details which might identify the parties can be used.

There’s the rub, you see. While “bona fide representatives of the Press” (aka professionals who work for a news outlet, and know what the hell they’re doing and how things work) may attend at the discretion of the judge, and may publish reports which name no names, and offer no identifying details, Angela is neither a bona fide journalist nor approved by the judge, and so she must find some alternative way to deal with her “bursting” problem. [Toilet’s straight down the hall on your left—Ed.]

And as we know, Angela has already plastered pictures, personal details, and the full names of all involved in the case on her Facebook page. That’s in addition to her tiny little accidental naming of the parents in each of the several live-stream videos she’s made.

So no, Angela, you are not on the “right side” of the line. And the fact that you have not been arrested yet may simply be a matter of time.

Image: used with thanks to Ethel Aardvark