Newspaper ordered to pay costs of child’s trust involved in Angela Rayner case

Court finds interests of preserving son’s damages greater than chilling impact on media

The High Court has ordered the owner of The Times newspaper to pay the costs of the trust managing a damages award for the son of former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner after it was pulled into an application for disclosure of the financial remedies order agreed between her and her former husband.

Times Media Ltd v Rayner & Ors [2025] EWHC 2878 (Fam) formed part of the scandal that led to Ms Rayner’s resignation from the government and as deputy leader of the Labour Party.

Mr Justice MacDonald recounted how a bare trust was set up in 2020 to hold the damages awarded to Ms Rayner’s son after a clinical negligence claim.

In 2023, the Family Court in Manchester approved a consent order for the financial arrangements following her divorce from Mark Rayner, which included the MP retaining a 25% interest in their former matrimonial home, with the trust receiving the remaining 75%. In January 2025, Ms Rayner sold her share to the trust and used the proceeds to purchase another property.

The tax paid on the latter transaction came under intense media scrutiny in the summer. In early September – after being released by the court from an undertaking not to talk about the financial arrangements publicly – Ms Rayner issued a statement setting out this history.

She resigned after the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser found that she had breached the ministerial code in relation to her omitting to pay the correct amount of tax on the property transaction.

Times Media Ltd (TML) then sought copies of the 2023 financial remedies order and the September 2025 releasing the Rayners from their undertakings. Both Ms Rayner and the trust did not oppose this, subject to redactions proposed by the trust’s professional trustee.

There was then a hearing at which MacDonald granted disclosure of the orders, at the conclusion of which the trust applied for an order that TML pay its costs of £15,522, including VAT. TML opposed it.

The judge said this “raise[d] a tension between the possibly chilling effect of costs orders against the press when seeking disclosure and the need to preserve finite funds held in trust for the purpose of meeting the ongoing needs of a vulnerable minor and, in due course, adult”.

Though TML was the successful party at the hearing and the judge – and indeed the parties at the time – accepted the application concerned matters of “obvious” public interest, he held that there were reasons for departing, in part, from the usual order that would follow the event.

He said the outcome “could have been achieved without the need for the parties, including the trust, to attend the hearing”.

While initially TML was not aware of the fact that the trust had been a party to the process that approved the financial remedy consent order – and its application was listed at short notice, four days after the application was made on a Friday – the newspaper still had time to seek to compromise its application ahead of the hearing.

The trust served a skeleton argument on TML the day before the hearing, not objecting to the application subject to certain redactions.

“Whilst the timescales were short the press are, generally, used to operating to short litigation deadlines,” MacDonald J observed. There was “no indication” that TML sought to compromise the application at any point; while the redactions were an issue, TML was neutral on them.

He said the “desirability of preserving damages held in the trust to meet the needs of a vulnerable child and, in due course, adult for their intended purpose, rather than in meeting the costs of litigation not directly affecting the child” reduced the weight to be accorded to the public interest in the media being able to report on the events that led to TML’s application.

“This conclusion is further reinforced in circumstances where the trust is… an ‘innocent party’ to the application. The trust was required to be served as a party to the proceedings and to engage in order to protect the interest of the child beneficiary of the trust.”

MacDonald J concluded that TML should pay costs summarily assessed at £8,500 plus VAT, being the costs of preparing for and attending the hearing.

Adam Wolanski KC (instructed by Reynolds Porter Chamberlain) for the applicant. Samantha Hillas KC (instructed by Brabners) for the first respondent (Ms Rayner). The second respondent (Mr Rayner} did not appear and was not represented. Alexander Learmonth KC (instructed by Rothley Law) for the third respondent (the trust).