Social media and family law

Keep your private life private

Love island star Cally Jane Beech has publicly accused her ex-boyfriend, Luis Morrison, of cheating on her while she was pregnant with their daughter Vienna. The couple started dating after meeting on the 2015 series of Love Island and welcomed their daughter in May 2017.

Now a single mother of 17 month old Vienna, Cally claims ‘she does everything on her own’. Luis publicly denied Cally’s claims and  Cally insists that Luis does not pay maintenance for their daughter.

The couple have now come under criticism for airing their problems on social media.

We live in times where social media is used frequently and sometimes compulsively. At times the general warning that children matters are private gets lost in the rush to respond to an incident. At Maguire Family Law, we have seen the court make orders that specifically direct the parties involved not to publicise details of their disputes on social media and in one of our more recent cases, the Judge requested an explanation of the social channel ‘Instagram’ so it could be decided if a party could post pictures of their children online.

We strongly advise our clients against posting anything disparaging relating to their spouse on social media sites.  Making negative comments about a partner on such platforms can have serious consequences in a case. Indeed, family lawyers often check social media content of those parties involved in a case to see what has been said and / or posted on such social media sites and often use the other party’s social media content as evidence of behaviour, relationships and events when presenting a case before a court.

Family matters require discretion in all areas.