“The mother shall attend a preliminary meeting with the Wycombe Child Contact Centre at such time as they reasonably request”
“The mother must make sure that the child spends time with the father as follows: a) Every other Saturday for two hours at Wycombe Child Contact Centre. b) After two sessions, time shall increase from two hours to three hours per session. c) The Children’s Guardian shall make the referral to Wycombe Child Contact Centre forthwith and confirm the arrangements to each of the parents if required. d) The interim child arrangements shall be reviewed by the Court at the next hearing. e) The interim contact shall commence on the first Saturday arranged for by the Wycombe Child Contact Centre. f) The mother shall ensure that the child is taken to the Wycombe Child Contact Centre, The Hub, Union Baptist Church, Easton Street, High Wycombe, HP11 1NJ, for the contact sessions once arranged. Mother may appoint a third party to take the child”
“The nature of contempt”: “Failure to comply with direction with penal notice attached”
“Failure to comply with direction included in the order of21 July 2023 that the mother shall attend a preliminary meeting at Wycombe Child Contact Centre at such time as they reasonably request, there being a penal notice attached to the same”
“On7 August 2023 , I received an email from the contact centre stating as follows…”
“Dear Isha, Mum failed to turn up for the pre-visit on Saturday. As you will appreciate, there is nothing further I can do at this stage. Dad is aware of the situation. Kind regards, Maureen Rose (Centre Coordinator)”
“…I would not wish to suggest that there should be any general principle that the statutory provisions relating to sentencing in ordinary criminal cases should be applied to sentencing for contempt. The circumstances surrounding contempt cases are much more various and the objectives underlying the court's actions are also much more various. There are, however, some points which it may be worth making. In making those points I would wish to emphasise that I do so only in the context of family cases. Family cases, it has long been recognised, raise different considerations from those elsewhere in the civil law. The two most obvious are the heightened emotional tensions that arise between family members and often the need for those family members to continue to be in contact with one another because they have children together or the like. Those two factors make the task of the court, in dealing with these issues, quite different from the task when dealing with commercial disputes or other types of case in which sometimes, in fact rarely, sanctions have to be imposed for contempt of court. Having said that: (1) These cases have to come before the court on an application to commit. That is the only procedure which is available. Not surprisingly, therefore, the court is directing its mind to whether or not committal to prison is the appropriate order. But it does not follow from that that imprisonment is to be regarded as the automatic consequence of the breach of an order. Clearly it is not. There is, however, no principle that imprisonment is not to be imposed at the first occasion: see Thorpe v. Thorpe [1998] 2 F.L.R. 127, a decision of this court. Nevertheless, it is a common practice, and usually appropriate in view of the sensitivity of the circumstances of these cases, to take some other course on the first occasion. (2) There is the difficulty, as Mr. Brett has pointed out, that the alternatives are limited. The full range of sentencing options is not available for contempt of court. Nevertheless, there is a range of things that the court can consider. It may do nothing—make no order. It may adjourn, and in a case where the alleged contemnor has not attended court that may be an appropriate course to take, although I would not say so in every case; it depends on the reasons that may be thought to lie behind the non-attendance. There is a power to fine. There is a power of sequestration of assets and there are mental health orders. All of those may, in an appropriate case, need consideration, particularly in a case where the court has not found any actual violence proved. (3) If imprisonment is appropriate, the length of the committal should be decided without reference to whether or not it is to be suspended. A longer period of committal is not justified because its sting is removed by virtue of its suspension. (4) The length of the committal has to depend upon the court's objectives. There are two objectives always in contempt of court proceedings. One is to mark the court's disapproval of the disobedience to its order. The other is to secure compliance with that order in the future. Thus, the seriousness of what has taken place is to be viewed in that light as well as for its own intrinsic gravity. (5) The length of the committal has to bear some reasonable relationship to the maximum of two years which is available. (6) Suspension is possible in a much wider range of circumstances than it is in criminal cases. It does not have to be the exceptional case. Indeed, it is usually the first way of attempting to secure compliance with the court's order. (7) The length of the suspension requires separate consideration, although it is often appropriate for it to be linked to continued compliance with the order underlying the committal. (8) Of course, the court has to bear in mind the context. This may be aggravating or mitigating. The context is often the break-up of an intimate relationship in which emotions run high and people behave in silly ways. The context of having children together, if that be the case, cannot be ignored. Sometimes that means that there is an aggravation of what has taken place, because of the greater fear that is engendered from the circumstances. Sometimes it may be mitigating, because there is reason to suppose that once the immediate emotions have calmed down, the molestation and threats will not continue. (9) In many cases the court will have to bear in mind that there are concurrent proceedings in another court based on either the same facts, or some of the same facts, which are before the court on the contempt proceedings. The court cannot ignore those parallel proceedings. It may have to take into account their outcome in considering what the practical effect is upon the contempt proceedings. They do have different purposes and often the overlap is not exact, but nevertheless the court will not want, in effect, the contemnor to suffer punishment twice for the same events. (10) It will usually be desirable for the court to explain very briefly why it has made the choices that it has made in the particular case before it. One understands all the constraints in a busy county court, dealing with large numbers of these cases these days, and one would not wish to impose too great a burden on the judiciary in this respect. Nevertheless, it would be appropriate in most cases for the contemnor to know why he or she was being sentenced to a period of imprisonment; why it was the length that it was; if it was suspended, why the suspension was as it was, but only very briefly. An important part of the exercise is that the contemnor should understand the importance of keeping to court orders, of not breaking them and the likely consequences if they are so broken.”