Background
Patrick Martins, a litigant in person, brought two separate civil claims totalling £500,000 in damages arising out of acrimonious family court proceedings concerning his child. His ex-partner had obtained non-molestation and occupation orders against him, and in July 2024 HHJ Oliver ordered Martins to vacate the family home. His application for permission to appeal that order was certified totally without merit by Mrs Justice Henke. Separately, the Family Court made an Extended Civil Restraint Order against Martins in July 2025, finding that he had persistently issued applications without merit and had been “bombarding the court with repeated unjustified complaints” and “harassing almost every professional connected with these proceedings.”
In February 2025 Martins issued the two KBD claims. The “Brent claim” (KB-2025-000412) was brought against the London Borough of Brent and three individual social services professionals for alleged negligence, defamation, and breaches of Articles 6 and 8 of the ECHR. The “NYAS claim” (KB-2025-000411) was brought against the National Youth Advocacy Service — appointed as the child’s Legal Guardian — two of its employees, and a barrister instructed to attend the 8 July 2024 hearing on NYAS’s behalf, for alleged negligence, bias, and procedural misconduct. Both claim forms blamed the defendants for influencing family court decisions adversely to Martins and limiting his contact with his child. Martins had also issued separate KBD claims against HMCTS and a witness, each struck out as an abuse of process by Master Le-Thornett.
The defendants in both actions applied to strike out the claims under CPR 3.4 on the basis that the particulars disclosed no reasonable grounds, and additionally for reverse summary judgment in the NYAS claim. Three NYAS defendants also sought a Civil Restraint Order. Deputy Master Marzec heard the applications on three separate dates in March and April 2026, having first taken steps to anonymise the child and to ensure compliance with section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 regarding disclosure of family proceedings material.
The Court’s Holding
Deputy Master Marzec struck out both claims in their entirety on multiple, independent grounds. First, the particulars of claim in both actions failed to identify what each individual defendant was alleged to have done that was unlawful: all defendants were swept together with generic references to “the Defendants,” with no attempt to distinguish their separate roles or responsibility for specific acts. This warranted striking out the claims against all the natural-person defendants. Second, the barrister defendant in the NYAS claim was independently protected by advocate immunity — a barrister cannot be sued in respect of anything said or done in court or in the course of submissions, a principle reaffirmed by the Court of Appeal in XGY v Chief Constable of Sussex Police [2025] EWCA Civ 1230, and applicable even where bad faith is alleged.
More broadly, the court held that both actions were an abuse of process as an impermissible collateral attack on the family court’s determinations. Applying Allsop v Banner Jones Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 7, the court undertook an intense focus on the facts and concluded that allowing the KBD to relitigate the Claimant’s contact arrangements — sensitive welfare decisions requiring the expertise and procedures of the family court — would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. The court rejected Martins’s submission that he was not challenging family court orders, finding that his damages claims were predicated on the proposition that those orders were wrong and caused by the defendants’ misconduct.
The court also held that each cause of action independently had no real prospect of success. The Article 8 complaints did not meet the required threshold of severity and, in any event, ECHR claims under the Human Rights Act can only be brought against public authorities, not private individuals. The Article 6 claim was hopeless because parties to litigation owe no obligation to ensure fair proceedings — that duty lies on the court alone. The defamation claim failed to comply with a single requirement of CPR PD 53B, with no statement identified, no publication particularised, and no serious harm alleged. The negligence claim asserted no recognised duty of care owed by the defendants to the claimant personally, and Supreme Court authority makes clear that local authority duties under the Children Act 1989 do not as a general rule give rise to a private law cause of action.
Key Takeaways
- Civil claims brought to challenge the outcome of family court proceedings — even if framed in negligence, defamation, or human rights — will be struck out as an abuse of process where they amount to a collateral attack on welfare determinations; the proper route is appeal within the family court system.
- Advocate immunity fully protects barristers from civil suit in respect of anything done or said in court or in written submissions, including where bad faith is alleged, per XGY v Chief Constable of Sussex Police [2025] EWCA Civ 1230.
- ECHR claims under the Human Rights Act 1998 s.6 lie only against public authorities; individual professionals cannot be personally sued for alleged Convention breaches, and an Article 6 complaint in respect of court proceedings lies against the state, not the parties or their representatives.
- A defamation claim that fails to identify the specific words complained of, the publication, the publishee, and the basis for serious harm will be struck out; the pleading requirements in CPR PD 53B are not optional formalities.
- A parent cannot claim damages in civil proceedings for emotional or other harm suffered by their child, nor circumvent that bar by purporting to join the child as a party and acting as Litigation Friend for the purpose of advancing their own objectives.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the principle that the family court is the exclusive and appropriate forum for resolving disputes about child welfare and contact arrangements. Allowing dissatisfied parents to re-run those disputes in the King’s Bench Division — whether dressed as negligence claims against social services, advocacy complaints against guardians’ counsel, or human rights actions against local authorities — would undermine the specialist family court system and expose professional participants in child protection work to unmeritorious litigation. The ruling provides clear guidance that such claims will be terminated at the earliest opportunity.
The case also illustrates the cumulative effect of the court’s vexatious litigant toolkit: a Family Court ECRO, multiple prior KBD strike-outs, and now the dismissal of two further claims, with a Civil Restraint Order application pending. For practitioners, it is a reminder that generic group pleadings against multiple defendants without role-specific particulars will not survive a strike-out application, and that the immunity of advocates and the limitations of Human Rights Act claims are potent early defences in claims of this nature.