When the Cloud Goes Down, Does Justice Stop? Google Cloud, Remote Hearings and Digital Court Failures

1. What actually happened on 20 October?

On Tuesday 20 October 2026, services dependent on Google Cloud’s London region, known as europe-west2, experienced major disruption. The effect reached banking and other digital services, but it also affected technology used in the administration of justice.

HM Courts & Tribunals Service confirmed that it was aware of an issue affecting its Cloud Video Platform (CVP), which supports some remote hearings, and told affected court users to contact the court or tribunal dealing with their case. The Law Society Gazette and ITV News reported the disruption on 20 October.

What Google’s new incident report says

An important update emerged after the original draft of this article. On 22 October 2026, Google published a preliminary incident report. It records an incident duration of 6 hours and 10 minutes, beginning at 23:00 Pacific time on 19 October and ending at 05:10 Pacific time on 20 October. This timing spans the morning of 20 October in the United Kingdom.

According to Google’s preliminary findings, a power-grid interruption affected the facility hosting availability zone europe-west2-b. The automatic backup generator control system failed to initiate the necessary transfer, and the uninterruptible power supply batteries were eventually depleted. That interruption affected servers, storage and network equipment, with consequences for workloads in other zones as capacity was redirected.

This is Google’s preliminary technical account, not its final root-cause report. The company says further analysis and preventive measures will follow. That distinction matters: the outage is established, but individual technical and operational lessons may develop.

Source: Google Cloud Service Health — incident and preliminary report, updated 22 October 2026.

2. The hidden dependency behind digital courts

A remote hearing may look simple from the participant’s point of view: click a link, allow the microphone and camera, and wait to join. In practice, that process depends on a chain of services: the participant’s broadband and device, the video platform, the platform’s hosting infrastructure, the court’s own hardware and network, and often separate systems for electronic files and hearing documents.

When any one of those systems fails, the practical effects depend on which function is lost. A person may remain connected but lose audio. They may hear the court but be unable to inspect the document being discussed. A participant with an interpreter may lose the very assistance needed to understand the evidence.

Not every inconvenience creates a procedural irregularity. But a digital system that is part of the route into court must be managed as a potential access-to-justice dependency, not merely an IT convenience.

3. What the June 2026 Family Court guidance says

On 4 June 2026 the judiciary published updated Remote Hearings in the Family Jurisdiction guidance, prepared by Mr Justice MacDonald for the President of the Family Division. It begins with a basic principle: litigants must have effective access to the court deciding their case. Remote participation can provide such access, but only if the arrangements meet the needs of the particular proceedings.

The guidance refers to Family Procedure Rules 2010, including rule 1.4(2)(l) on using technology as part of active case management, rule 4.1(3)(e) on holding hearings using direct oral communication, rule 4.3 on orders made of the court’s own initiative and rule 22.3 concerning evidence by video link or other means.

The court’s decision whether to hold a hearing remotely remains case-specific and judicial. The guidance notes that proceedings involving contested factual questions and substantive final hearings will ordinarily be attended hearings. It also recognises that limited access to technology, disability, interpreting needs and participation difficulties can make a remote hearing unsuitable.

That means the legal analysis is not answered by asking whether a video meeting technically existed. The court must consider access, fairness, the nature of the issues, welfare questions and the ability to engage meaningfully. An outage can change those practical circumstances during the hearing itself.

4. Does a failed video link make a hearing unfair?

Not automatically. A short interruption may be resolved by reconnecting or allowing the court to repeat what was missed. A more serious breakdown may prevent a party hearing evidence, responding to an allegation, examining a witness, following legal submissions or understanding a consequential direction.

The court’s overriding objective under FPR Part 1 includes dealing with cases justly, having regard to welfare issues. It is therefore necessary to distinguish the fact of a technical failure from its effect on the individual proceedings. The relevant questions include the duration, what was occurring, what the person missed, when the court became aware and what remedial measures were available.

If an order was made during the disconnection

A technical failure does not, by itself, render a sealed Family Court order invalid. Equally, a restored video link does not prove that earlier prejudice has been remedied. The first steps will usually be to establish what happened, obtain the sealed order and identify any missed submissions or evidence.

Depending on the facts and procedural stage, clarification, a further direction, an appropriate application or advice about an appeal may need consideration. These are different routes, with different thresholds and time limits; an appeal should never be assumed to follow simply because there was an outage.

What about a general platform outage?

A widely reported infrastructure incident can be helpful corroborating context. It cannot prove that an individual litigant was unable to participate at a particular time, what they missed or the consequences for their case. That requires a contemporaneous, case-specific account.

5. Safeguarding, domestic abuse and unequal participation

A technology failure may impose very different burdens on the people in the same hearing. A professionally represented party may have office equipment, stable broadband and colleagues able to help. Another may be representing themselves from temporary accommodation, sharing a device or relying on a private room arranged specifically to make participation safe.

For someone affected by domestic abuse or coercive control, the method of joining can itself be a safeguarding issue. A last-minute switch to a different platform could expose contact details, remove a protective arrangement or interrupt access to an intermediary. The answer cannot always be to ‘just telephone in’.

FPR Part 3A addresses vulnerable parties and witnesses and participation directions. The June 2026 judicial guidance explicitly says those considerations apply equally to remote and partly remote hearings. A technological solution must therefore be assessed in terms of safe and meaningful participation, not merely ease of reconnection.

In proceedings concerning a child’s upbringing, the Children Act 1989 section 1 welfare framework remains applicable to the substantive decisions. A breakdown in the platform does not justify unsafe contact, breaching an order or distributing protected children’s records through an unapproved service.

Where immediate protection is required, the appropriate urgent safeguarding or emergency routes must be used independently of the scheduled remote hearing.

6. What to do if your remote hearing fails

HMCTS’s Cloud Video Platform guidance tells users to carry out joining checks and to contact technical support if necessary. It provides the CVP helpdesk on 0330 808 9405 and directs users to tell the court immediately if the problem cannot be resolved. The court’s hearing notice is the starting point for identifying the correct joining details and court contact.

1. Identify the problem as accurately as you can. Is it the court platform, your connection, the camera, audio, documents or something else? Do not speculate that every issue comes from the same outage.
2. Notify the court promptly. Use the telephone or email identified in the hearing notice; include the case number, scheduled hearing time and a concise explanation of what has failed.
3. Record the times. Note when the fault began, whether you could hear or speak, attempted reconnections and when the court was contacted.
4. Ask for directions. Do not assume that the hearing has been cancelled, that a deadline is suspended or that you can move the hearing to a different platform independently.
5. Explain any actual disadvantage. If you missed a witness’s answer, a relevant page or a submission, describe exactly what was missed and why it matters.
6. Preserve appropriate correspondence. Keep non-confidential technical messages, emails and acknowledgements. Do not make unauthorised recordings or screenshots of court proceedings.
7. Check the sealed order and future dates. Once the hearing ends, establish what directions remain in force and promptly address any disputed or unclear part.

A concise message to the court

Subject: Urgent technical issue — remote hearing — [case number]

Dear Court Officer,

I am a party in case [number], listed today at [time]. At approximately [time] I experienced [brief description of the connection or platform issue]. I attempted [steps taken] and have been unable to [join/hear/participate].

Please could the difficulty be brought to the attention of the judge or relevant court officer and could I be told of any authorised alternative joining arrangements or directions? I remain available on [safe contact number].

Yours faithfully, [name]

This is an illustrative urgent communication, not a prescribed form or substitute for a formal application where one is needed. Do not disclose a protected address or unsafe telephone number.

7. Worked example: a safeguarding hearing interrupted

Imagine a private-law children case listed remotely for a directions hearing. One parent is representing themselves. The court is considering disputed domestic abuse allegations, whether further fact-finding is necessary and what participation arrangements should apply at the next hearing.

During that discussion the platform fails for the unrepresented parent. They call the court and send an email. When access is restored, they discover that directions have been made concerning their statement and the timetable for the next hearing.

A careful assessment would ask what part of the hearing was missed, whether the judge was aware of the problem, what actual participation opportunity was lost, what order was made and whether a relevant remedy is required. It is not enough to say simply ‘Google was down’, nor would it be right to conclude that the party necessarily suffered no prejudice because they rejoined later.

8. DAVE: modern equipment and the separate question of resilience

Just eleven days before the outage, HMCTS published an update on its Digital Audio-Visual Evolution (DAVE) programme, which replaces outdated courtroom audiovisual equipment and improves video, microphones and digital evidence presentation.

As of September 2026, HMCTS reported approximately 385 refreshed courtrooms within an estate of roughly 2,850 courtrooms, around 2,020 of which were video-enabled. It planned a further 150 installations in the 2026/27 financial year.

That investment is necessary: proceedings can be undermined when participants cannot hear evidence or see documents properly. But courtroom hardware improvements and resilience against an upstream cloud-platform outage are different engineering problems.

Modernisation asks whether the court has better technology. Resilience asks whether it can keep administering justice when a critical dependency fails. That may involve tested continuity plans, clear incident communication, properly authorised alternatives and an accessible route for parties who lose participation.

The public reporting examined here does not establish all the continuity measures activated by HMCTS during this particular outage, so the article does not assume that such measures were absent or inadequate.

9. The JSH Law Six-Question Check for a technology failure

This practical framework is designed to help turn a confusing technical event into a clear, evidence-led explanation. It is not a statutory legal test or an official HMCTS checklist.

1. What failed? Identify the function: device, connection, hearing link, audio, video, documents or permitted communication.
2. When did it fail? Record the start, duration and reconnection attempts as accurately as possible.
3. What part of the hearing was affected? Identify the evidence, legal argument, participation arrangement or direction you could not follow.
4. Who was notified? Keep an accurate record of the notification and any response.
5. What was the actual impact? Explain the resulting difficulty without assumptions about anyone else’s intentions.
6. What lawful next step is needed? Identify whether a clarification, break, repeated submission, revised direction, alternative arrangement or formal procedural advice is required.

The purpose is not to manufacture a complaint or an appeal. It is to equip the court to understand a genuine problem and assess it proportionately.

10. The lesson for a justice system dependent on the cloud

The outage does not prove that digital justice should be abandoned. Remote hearings can reduce travel, support certain vulnerable users and provide flexibility where the court considers them appropriate. Electronic documents, remote attendance and courtroom audiovisual improvements can make proceedings more effective.

But systems designed around efficiency must still function as systems of justice. The experience of one unrepresented parent whose hearing was interrupted can matter as much as a provider’s overall recovery percentage. A cloud service returning to normal is not the same as confirming that a missed opportunity to address the court has been remedied.

Five questions decision-makers should ask

1. What happens when a large external provider or shared platform becomes unavailable?
2. How quickly can affected court users obtain an accurate service status and authorised alternative instructions?
3. Who checks whether a party missed something legally material rather than simply a connection notification?
4. How are confidentiality, disability and domestic abuse participation safeguards maintained during fallback arrangements?
5. What evidence will be published about delayed hearings, user experience and lessons from the incident, while respecting Family Court confidentiality?

Those questions should sit alongside procurement, technology risk management and administrative efficiency. Family justice has an independent duty to safeguard participation and welfare. It cannot sensibly assess technological success solely by the number of enabled courtrooms or the percentage of time servers remain available.

11. Questions litigants in person frequently ask

Was every Family Court hearing affected on 20 October?

No such conclusion is supported. HMCTS reported CVP problems, and reporting confirmed disruption to remote court hearings. The available public sources do not establish the number of Family Court hearings that failed or were postponed.

Does a platform failure mean the judge must adjourn?

No. The court will need to consider the circumstances, what was missed, whether participation can be restored, welfare issues and the demands of fairness. The correct response might be a short pause, an authorised alternative or, where appropriate, a further hearing.

Is an order automatically invalid if I lost connection?

No. You need the sealed order and a clear record of what happened. Any appropriate direction, application or appeal depends on the specific legal and procedural circumstances.

Should I take screenshots of the court session?

Do not assume permission. Unauthorised recording or screenshots of court proceedings may be prohibited. Ordinary technical error notifications should be distinguished from capturing the hearing itself.

Can a court insist that I attend remotely?

The court has case-management powers concerning the mode of hearing. If technology access, disability, vulnerability or safety creates a serious participation problem, raise it through the correct route as early as possible.

What if there are safeguarding allegations?

Communicate the participation issue safely and promptly. The court must consider relevant safeguards and cannot assume that a hurried replacement method gives every participant equivalent protection. Do not breach court orders or reveal protected information.

12. Sources and further JSH Law reading

Official primary sources

• Google Cloud Service Health: October 2026 europe-west2 incident and preliminary report (22 October)
• Judiciary: Remote Hearings in the Family Jurisdiction (June 2026)
• Judiciary: Remote Participation Guidance
• Family Procedure Rules 2010, Part 1
• Family Procedure Rules 2010, Part 3A
• HMCTS: Cloud Video Platform joining and troubleshooting guidance
• HMCTS: Introducing the DAVE programme (9 October 2026)

Contemporaneous reporting

• Law Society Gazette: Power event disrupts remote hearings (20 October 2026)
• ITV News: Banks and courts affected by Google cloud disruption (20 October 2026)

Related JSH Law guides

• Remote Hearings in Family Court: What to Expect and How to Prepare
• Missed a Family Court Deadline? How to Respond
• HMCTS AI Case Readiness Assistant: What Could It Mean for Family Court Delays?
• Family Court Hearing Preparation Support