HM Courts and Tribunals Service

5. Mr W complains HMCTS failed to properly record multiple family law hearing proceedings between March 2023 and February 2024 and failed to inform him of this until January 2025 after multiple complaints about the issue. Mr W also complains in March 2025 HMCTS delayed notifying him about an appeal decision. Mr W is also unhappy with the way HMCTS has handled his complaints about these issues and the financial remedy offers it made.

6. Mr W tells us this failure to record the hearings properly has meant he is unable to properly pursue appeals against the decisions the judge made, and to make complaints about the judge’s conduct. Mr W also tells us these failings have impacted his relationship with his daughter and affected his trust in justice organisations. Mr W also tells us his wellbeing, professional life, and personal relationships have been affected by the unfair procedures he has experienced from HMCTS. Mr W also tells us the delayed appeal decision impacted on his window to respond to the decision. Mr W also tells us the way HMCTS handled his complaint has made him concerned about bias in HMCTS and caused significant distress.

7. Mr W would like HMCTS to acknowledge the mistakes, apologise for the impact caused, implement training and service changes to prevent the issues happening again, and provide a significant financial remedy.

8. In early November 2023, Mr W put in a transcript request form for one day of a Family Court hearing he attended earlier in the year.

9. At the end of November 2023, HMCTS became aware of some issues in recordings which had been sent for transcription. HMCTS stated in its responses at this point it was not aware any of Mr W’s hearing recordings had been affected by this.

10. At the end of December 2023 Mr W raised a complaint saying the transcription company had been unable to transcribe the recording due to issues with the recording itself.

11. In mid-January 2024 HMCTS responded to the complaint and stated it had made the judge aware of the recording issue and the judge would address this at the next hearing. In later January 2024 HMCTS also confirmed to Mr W the court became aware of the issue prior to him raising his complaint. In February 2024 HMCTS replaced the court recording system after looking into the issues.

12. At the end of November 2024, after requesting another transcript, Mr W complained again about issues with the recording, alongside other process delay concerns.

13. In February 2025 HMCTS responded and apologised to Mr W, offered him £100 for the distress the recording issues caused, and reassured him it had put in steps to ensure this would not happen again. Mr W also raised other complaints around this time, however this specific complaint was the only one which reached the final appeal stage.

14. In April 2025 Mr W also raised a complaint about delays in an appeal process and in May 2025 HMCTS provided a final response which stated there had been delays in sharing the judge’s decision with Mr W and offered £50 for the inconvenience.

17. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen.

Recording issues

18. Mr W tells us the HMCTS failure to properly record his Family Court hearings has had a significant impact on his legal case, his family relationships, his work life, his mental health, and his ability to complain about what he considered to be biased judicial conduct. Mr W believes HMCTS should have notified him of the extent of the issue and impact on his recorded hearings when he complained. Mr W also complains HMCTS has not provided a sufficient remedy for his complaint in comparison to the significant impact on his life he has claimed.

19. HMCTS has stated in its response the issues with recordings were a result of a technical error when the recordings themselves were downloaded. HMCTS said once it realised this issue was occurring it took steps to address this and has taken steps to ensure this does not happen again. HMCTS has apologised for the distress and inconvenience and offered what it felt was an appropriate financial remedy.

20. HMCTS have acknowledged something has gone wrong, therefore we do not necessarily need to look further into the recording equipment issue itself. We accept there was an issue with the equipment and HMCTS took action to investigate and rectify this when it became aware.

21. If we can see something has gone wrong and the organisation has acknowledged this, we look at how the organisation responded.

22. We appreciate Mr W feels HMCTS should have done more to notify him of the extent of the issue. HMCTS were aware of some faults with the recording equipment and were investigating this when Mr W raised his complaint. HMCTS responded to his complaint explaining how the technical fault had affected the requested transcription. At this point HMCTS could have potentially provided Mr W with more information about the extent of the issue if it was known. We also acknowledge Mr W had the opportunity to escalate his complaint and ask about other recordings during the complaints process.

23. We also look at whether we can link the claimed impact to the issue which occurred. We then look to see if the actions the organisation has already taken remedy the impact we can link to the issue.

24. Mr W has claimed the lack of transcripts has meant he was unable to properly appeal or complain about the judge involved with his case.

25. As outlined in the HMCTS responses, the judge made decisions from handwritten notes, meaning any issues with the audio file would not have affected the decisions made. We also believe Mr W was present at the hearings, meaning a lack of access to a transcript of the hearings would not be a significant barrier to him raising appeals or complaints.

26. Mr W has stated he sought the transcripts to prove misconduct in the judge’s behaviour and actions towards him in court. Again, as outlined in the HMCTS responses, transcripts would not capture any information other than the spoken words. Mr W was unlikely to gain the proof he was seeking from transcriptions.

27. HMCTS has explained since it changed the recording equipment in February 2024, it is not possible to re-download unaffected copies of any hearings which occurred prior to the change.

28. HMCTS explained in one response its staff listened to the audio recordings and although there was some interference, the staff were able to adjust volume levels to a point where they could hear speech more clearly. HMCTS advised Mr W he may wish to seek other transcription services which may have the right equipment to combat the interference.

29. Overall, we cannot conclude the audio issues and lack of transcription will have materially affected Mr W’s ability to appeal or make complaints. We also cannot speculate on the outcome of any potential appeals or complaints Mr W could make with the proof he was seeking.

30. We appreciate Mr W has clearly been through a very difficult time and that the court cases have affected his life and his wellbeing. We consider these impacts are related to the decisions the court made on his case, not to the issues in downloaded audio files.

31. Mr W is seeking considerably more financial remedy to account for the lost relationships and future lost earnings from the impact his mental health has had on his ability to work. We do not doubt Mr W experienced distress and wider difficulties. To recommend a further remedy, we would need to see that those impacts were caused by the recording issue or delay, rather than by the wider court proceedings and outcomes. The evidence available does not allow us to make that link.

32. We acknowledge the recording issues will have been frustrating for Mr W at a time when he was already experiencing distress. We also acknowledge HMCTS could have provided clearer information about the extent of the issue when Mr W raised his complaint, which may have caused additional distress when he learnt this.

33. HMCTS Complaint Handling Guidance outlines £100 as the appropriate remedy limit for complaints which involve inconvenience and distress with no significant effect on the complainant’s court case.

34. In this case, we cannot see evidence of a directly related impact from the recording beyond distress and inconvenience. We therefore consider £100 is a sufficient financial offer to remedy the actual impact which has stemmed from the mistakes. We will therefore not be taking any further action on this part of the complaint.

Delayed Judicial Decision

35. Mr W complains HMCTS delayed providing him with a judge’s decision which then affected his ability to appeal the decision.

36. HMCTS has apologised for this and offered £50 for the inconvenience of the delay.

37. The judge made a decision in March 2025 to deny Mr W’s appeal. HMCTS should have processed and shared this decision with Mr W within 48 hours and instead did not process it until five days later. We note there was a weekend in between these dates, meaning the delay was only extended by one working day.

38. This process did take longer than it should have, which HMCTS acknowledged. We do not consider the delay to be so significant it will have likely had any effect on Mr W’s ability to respond to the decision.

39. HMCTS Complaint Handling Guidance outlines £50 as an appropriate remedy for complaints which involve inconvenience and distress with no significant effect on the complainant’s court case.

40. As with the above decision, we consider £50 is sufficient to remedy the inconvenience the slight delay will have caused Mr W as we cannot see it will likely have affected his case.

41. We will therefore not be taking any further action on this part of the complaint.

Complaint Handling

42. Mr W tells us he is unhappy with how HMCTS handled his complaints and the remedies it has offered.

43. We have already considered the remedies in the two sections above so will only be looking here at how HMCTS responded to and handled Mr W’s complaints.

44. We can see Mr W made 9 complaints to HMCTS between December 2023 and May 2025 about the same cases. We note Mr W made 8 of these complaints within a six month period.

45. Below is a timeline of Mr W’s separate complaints and how HMCTS responded from the documents Mr W has shared with us: Complaint A • Raised in December 2023 regarding the audio recording issues • HMCTS responded in January 2024 • Mr W did not respond or escalate his complaint at this time Complaint B • Raised in November 2024 regarding the audio recording issues • HMCTS responded in December 2024 to say this was a duplicate complaint to the one raised previously • Mr W argued it was a different complaint and HMCTS responded with a second complaint response to Complaint A Complaint C • Raised in November 2024 regarding delays to transcript requests • HMCTS responded in December 2024 apologising for the delays • Mr W did not respond to or escalate this complaint Complaint D • Raised in December 2024 regarding a Subject Access Request • HMCTS responded in December 2024 • Mr W did not respond to or escalate this complaint Complaint E • Raised in January 2025 about recording issues with other hearings additional to Complaint A • HMCTS responded in February 2025 and this was escalated to the final tier of the complaints process • HMCTS provided a final response in February 2025 apologising and offering a financial remedy Complaint F • Raised in February 2025 regarding complaint handling • HMCTS responded in February 2025 and outlined the complaints process • Mr W did not respond to or escalate this complaint Complaint G • Raised in February 2025 regarding a delay in his judicial review application • HMCTS responded in February 2025 • Mr W did not respond to or escalate this complaint Complaint H • Raised in April 2025 regarding delay in processing a judge’s order • HMCTS responded in May and this was escalated to the final complaint response stage where HMCTS apologised and offered a financial remedy.

Complaint I • Raised in May 2025 • HMCTS declined to investigate as all issues raised had already been addressed in other complaints.

46. Overall, we have not seen evidence of significant delays in HMCTS’s complaint responses or how it addressed each of Mr W’s complaints. At each stage HMCTS provided Mr W with information about how to escalate his complaints, and he did not follow this for most complaints. There is nothing in how HMCTS has handled these multiple complaints which is not in line with its own Complaint Handling Guidance or our own Principles of Good Administration.

47. We understand Mr W is frustrated with the outcomes of these complaints. However, we have not seen HMCTS did anything wrong in its handling of Mr W’s complaints. We recognise the complaint history became complex. However, the evidence shows this was largely because Mr W raised overlapping concerns through several separate complaints, rather than following the escalation route which was provided for each complaint.

48. We therefore will be taking no further action on this part of the complaint.

49. We realise this is unlikely to be the outcome Mr W was looking for when he approached our office. We hope we have clearly explained the reasons for our decision and we thank him for bringing his concerns to our attention.

1. We have carefully considered Mr W’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

2. We have decided we cannot link the events complained about to the serious impact Mr W has claimed. We consider the impact we can see stems directly from the mistakes HMCTS made has already been sufficiently remedied and will therefore be taking no further action on this complaint.

3. We have also seen no indications of failings in how HMCTS handled and responded to Mr W’s numerous complaints about his cases with HMCTS.

4. We therefore have decided there is no need for any further action or investigation from us for this complaint.