Sunderland City Council v Lioubov Macpherson

Sunderland City Council has applied for an order committing the Defendant Lioubov Macpherson to prison for contempt of court by breaching injunctive orders made by the court in Court of Protection proceedings on 30 June 2022. The background to the case is set out in detail in my judgment of 30 June 2022, SCC v FP and others [2022] EWCOP 30. As set out in that judgment, the Defendant’s daughter, FP is the protected party in Court of Protection proceedings. She is a very vulnerable woman in her early 30’s who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a child, suffered meningitis in adulthood, and who now suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. She lacks capacity to make decisions for herself about where she should live, her care, and her contact with others.

This judgment not only sets out the breaches of orders found to constitute contempt of court and the court’s sentencing of the Defendant, but also a determination that whilst reporting of the name of the Defendant will risk revealing the identity of the protected person, FP, there should be no prohibition on the reporting of the Defendant’s identity.

In 2020 HHJ Moir made various findings against the Defendant during the course of Court of Protection proceedings. In her, as yet unpublished judgment of 21 October 2020, she noted the Defendant’s evidence that in her view, FP had been:

When in the Defendant’s care, FP’s condition deteriorated to the extent that she required in-patient treatment under detention under the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA). Such was the harm caused to FP by the Defendant’s interactions with her and the Defendant’s unsafe management of FP’s medication, that HHJ Moir ordered that it was FP’s best interests not to be cared for at home by her mother, but to be moved to a care home upon the cessation of her MHA detention. FP has resided at her current care home, Placement 3, since November 2021. She receives expert professional care at Placement 3 which is rated outstanding by the Care Quality Commission.

It would be very harmful to FP were she to deteriorate again so as to require detention under the MHA 1983, or if she were to lose her current placement for whatever reason. There are no similar placements, offering specialist care of the kind that she needs and currently receives, in the vicinity. She would have to move to a new placement in a new area, with a new set of carers. The alternative would be for her to return home to the care of her mother – a situation that previously led to her requiring prolonged in-patient treatment under detention.

After careful further consideration, in my order of 30 June 2022 I suspended face to face contact between FP and the Defendant. Telephone contact between them continued. The reasons for that difficult decision are set out in the published judgment (above). Upon review on 6 December 2022, when I received evidence that FP had become more settled and to engage more in activities, I extended that suspension further but directed that video contact should be introduced beginning during the Christmas holiday period. All the orders made in the Court of Protection have been made, as required by the Mental Capacity Act 2005, in FP’s best interests. The have all involved a difficult balance between trying to ensure that FP has time with her mother, but is protected from harm.

The Defendant applied to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal my order of 30 June 2022, but permission was refused, and the application found to be totally without merit.

The applications to commit the Defendant to prison for contempt of court allege breaches of injunctive court orders made against the Defendant not to publish material from or about the Court of Protection proceedings on internet sites. By doing so, the Defendant identifies or is likely to identify FP and to publicise details about her condition and treatment.

To understand the breaches of the court orders by the Defendant, it is necessary to understand her beliefs and motivation. The Defendant is convinced that FP is not ill and does not have paranoid schizophrenia. It is her firm belief that treating clinicians have caused and continue to cause FP to suffer harm by administering drugs to her that she does not need and that cause her to have the symptoms she exhibits, including her hallucinations, and screaming episodes. There is no evidence to corroborate the Defendant’s beliefs and successive judges in the Court of Protection have found that her beliefs are without foundation, but she maintains them and shows no sign of moderating them. The significant problem is not that the Defendant holds these distorted beliefs but that she acts upon them:

Accordingly, the Court has made orders, which I extended on 30 June 2022, prohibiting the Defendant from publishing such material. The relevant orders that I made on 30 June 2022 were as follows:

The application to commit was originally brought in three applications made November and December 2022. Those application contained eleven separate alleged breaches of the injunctive orders made on 30 June 2022. As I shall explain in more detail below, those eleven alleged breaches were all admitted by the Defendant at the first hearing of the committal applications on 8 December 2022. I set out the admitted breaches with sequential numbering in my order of that date. However, at the hearing on 16 January 2023 the Claimant indicated that it did not seek to persuade the court that six of the admitted breaches constituted contempt of court – the Claimant relies only on the allegations numbered 1, 3, 4, 5 and 11. For the sake of economy therefore I shall not repeat the other six breaches in this judgment. I have disregarded them. The admitted breaches said to constitute contempts of court are put by the Claimant as follows:

As can be seen the alleged breaches have not been set out in chronological order in the applications, which should have been the case. I do not find them to have been drafted in a focused manner. Also, the references to “retweeting” are incorrect – these were tweets that contained links that had been tweeted by the Defendant previously – she was not re-tweeting her own or anybody else’s tweets.

The Defendant was summonsed to attend a first hearing of the committal applications on 8 December 2022. She appeared at the Newcastle Civil and Family Court and Tribunal Centre on that date and had the benefit of pre-arranged legal representation by Ms Turner, solicitor advocate at the hearing. The Defendant was reminded that she had the right to remain silent. I also reminded her and Ms Turner that the Defendant was entitled to sufficient time to consider the allegations, in particular since the third application to commit was dated 7 December 2022, only one day before the hearing. The Defendant elected to continue with the proceedings and not to ask for further time. She admitted all eleven of the breaches alleged including the five as set out above. She did so without equivocation.

I have watched, listened to, and read the material posted by the Defendant where that material has continued to be available. By reference to the numbering of the allegations set out above, and admitted by the Defendant:

The Defendant’s online posts appear to have been quite widely read – some by over 250 people, one by over 3000. Her Facebook account is public – access to it is not restricted to “friends” only

On 8 December 2022 I indicated that I would adjourn for approximately one month before considering sentencing of the Defendant. I asked whether Ms Turner sought any reports on the Defendant prior to sentencing but she said not. I had in mind the possibility of the court receiving medical evidence about the Defendant if that might be relevant to sentencing. Ms Turner was satisfied that her client had capacity to give instructions. Mr Lewis representing the Defendant today, on 16 January 2023, has not sought any capacity assessment of his client nor any medical reports. On 8 December 2022 I indicated to the Defendant that she had an opportunity before sentencing to abide by the injunctive orders made on 30 June 2022 which remained in force and to take the offending material down from the internet. Prior to the hearing before me today, on 16 January 2023, she has not done so.

I have received a statement from FP’s litigation friend, Mr Salmon, who visited her at Placement 3 on 11 January 2023. He relates that FP told him that her mother might be sent to prison because of posting things on the internet. It has not been established from where FP gained this information, but the fact is that FP is aware, at least in broad terms, of these committal proceedings.

As recently as 13 January 2023 the Claimant served personally on the Defendant a further (fourth) application to commit her to prison for contempt of court for breaching the injunctive orders which I had extended on 6 December 2022. Five alleged breaches are set out in the application, including an allegation that the Defendant has posted the name of Placement 3.

Ms Turner’s firm came off the record prior to the hearing on 16 January 2023 but the Defendant secured representation, by direct access, from Mr Lewis who appeared at the hearing before me on 16 January 2023. The Defendant has attended in person as ordered. Upon notice of the most recent application for committal I directed that it should be listed for directions or disposal at the hearing on 16 January 2023, the hearing which had been fixed for consideration of sentencing. The purpose of my order, made without a hearing, was simply to list the application at the same time as the other applications to commit and to give the appropriate warnings to the Defendant about her rights, which were set out on the face of my order.

In the Claimant’s position statement for the sentencing hearing on 16 January 2023, it informs the court that the orders of 30 June 2022 and 6 December 2022 were not served personally on the defendant. She was present at each hearing. I explained the orders to her. She was served with the full written orders made by email after each hearing once the orders had been drafted and approved by the court. However, there was no personal service and I made no order dispensing with personal service of the orders.

The Court of Protection Rules [COPR] in force prior to 1 January 2023 provided at rule 21.8:

The Practice Direction 21A applicable before 1 January 2023 stated,

The new Part 21 of the COPR applicable from 1 January 2023 provides:

The new Practice Direction 21A in relation to contempt of court, applicable from 1 January 2023, contains the same provisions in relation to striking out and waiver as in the previous Practice Direction, but now the refer to the defendant rather than the respondent, and they now appear at paragraph 2 of PD21A – Contempt of Court.

Given that the defendant was present at court (albeit remotely on each occasion) when the orders to which the committal applications relate were made and that the orders were subsequently sent to her by email, I can discern no prejudice to her at all from the failure to effect personal service of the orders upon her. Mr Lewis on behalf of the Defendant accepts that there was no prejudice to her. No permission was given prior to the applications for committal to dispense with personal service of the orders alleged to have been breached. There has therefore been a procedural defect in relation to the applications to commit. However, given the absence of prejudice to the defendant by reason of the procedural defects, in accordance with the PD21A I waive the procedural defects of failing to serve those orders personally on the defendant.

The substantive Court of Protection proceedings have been heard in public but subject to a Transparency Order which seeks to protect the anonymity of FP. Whilst the general rule is that a Court of Protection hearing will take place in private (r 4.1 of COPR), r 4.3 allows the court to order that a hearing, or part of it, will be heard in public and Practice Direction 4C (entitled 'Transparency') provides at para.2.1 that, unless it appears to the court that there is a good reason not to, the court will "ordinarily" deploy its power under rule 4.3 and order that "any attended hearing shall be in public". When doing so it is standard practice for the court to impose restrictions on the publication of any information from the proceedings.

In this case, not only have the Court of Protection proceedings been in public, but I have also published a judgment (above) setting out details of the case. However, that judgment is anonymised, using the anonymisation set out in the Transparency Order, in order to avoid FP being identified.

For anyone who might question why it is the standard, but not invariable, practice in the Court of Protection, to make orders preventing the identification of P (the protected person), the reasons are primarily that:

In the present case, the injunctive orders made against the Defendant were required because the Defendant had consistently breached the Transparency Order made in the Court of Protection proceedings and the court considered it necessary to make more specific and targeted orders to prohibit the Defendant from publishing and communicating confidential information about FP without FP’s consent (which she would not have the capacity to give in any event), invading her privacy. The injunctive orders related to FP’s best interests in respect of her residence, care and contact. For example, if the Defendant uses contact with FP as an opportunity to extract recorded evidence of FP with which to publicise her complaints about her care and treatment, then that is relevant to FP’s best interests in relation to contact with the Defendant. The court is entitled to and did seek to protect FP’s best interests by ordering the Defendant not to record and publicise recordings of FP.

The purpose of preventing the Defendant from posting films of her daughter and naming her through posts on social media platforms, is to protect FP. Not only is it a gross invasion of FP’s privacy to do so but, in this particular case, the nature of the Defendant’s publications about FP is to create the wholly misleading impression that FP is being abused and “tortured” by those caring for her, as sanctioned by a “corrupt” court system. The Defendant is entitled to hold those views, but risks causing a deterioration in FP’s mental health were FP to learn of these publications. The evidence is that FP does have access to the internet. Somehow FP has learned of the committal proceedings.

The standard Transparency Order used in the Court of Protection, as used in this case, expressly excludes committal proceedings from its ambit.

The then Lord Chief Justice’s Practice Direction: Committal for Contempt of Court - Open Court, March 2015, provides:

Prior to the listing of the first hearing of the committal applications on 8 December 2022, the Defendant had posted on social media about the committal proceedings. Abiding by the Transparency Order in place in the Court of Protection proceedings, the court at Newcastle listed the case using the anonymisation used in those proceedings rather than the Defendant’s full name. I accept the submission made by Mr Lewis on behalf of the Defendant that her full name should have appeared in the list. At that first hearing of the committal applications on 8 December 2022, the case was however listed in public. A member of the press attended. He made submissions that I should allow the Defendant’s name to be reported but I decided on that occasion to extend the Transparency Order to the committal proceedings and to prohibit the naming of FP, her placement, or her relatives, including the Defendant. I considered then that to identify the Defendant would risk identifying FP, her daughter, and that the balance of Article 10 and Article 8 rights weighed in favour of prohibiting the naming of the Defendant. Details about the family, anonymised, are within my published judgment. I considered that were the Defendant to be named in reports of the committal proceedings, it would give rise to a risk that her daughter, FP would be identified and, with her identification, all manner of details about her medical history, her current condition, and personal life would become known to anyone who cared to read both the judgment and reports of the committal proceedings. To allow the Defendant to be named would be to undermine the very orders she was alleged to have breached. Maintaining the Defendant’s anonymity, and thereby protecting FP, appeared to me to be necessary in order to maintain the integrity of the orders the Defendant had admitted she had breached. To allow FP’s anonymity to be lost, or at least jeopardised, would be to grant the Defendant what she had sought to achieve by her contempt of court. In correspondence about the alleged breaches of the injunctive orders, the Defendant wrote, ‘Prison will only make me more determined. At least it will go public then.’ I had to balance rights under Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The view I took was that the restriction on freedom of speech, by reason of not being able to name the Defendant, was a necessary and proportionate restriction in order to protect the Article 8 rights of FP. The power of court to restrict the reporting of the Defendant’s name was provided for by r 21.27 of the COPR 2017 as it was at the time of that hearing. Whilst the 2015 Practice Direction does not expressly allow for such a restriction, it does allow for derogations from the principle of open justice “in exceptional circumstances, when they are strictly necessary as measures to secure the proper administration of justice. Derogations shall, where justified, be no more than strictly necessary to achieve their purpose”. The COPR allowed for the reporting restriction, and I regard the ordered restriction as being properly justified at the time that it was made.

I subsequently received correspondence from Mr Farmer, of PA Media, and Professor Celia Kitzinger of the Open Justice Court of Protection Project. They expressed concerns that the case had not been listed publicly, but it had been listed in the public list in the court where the hearing took place. The problem appears to be that in Courtserve, a service which allows subscribers to access court lists from around the country, the listing of the case was different from that in the local court. I do not know how that occurred but am aware that it is something that has happened on other occasions. Since journalists, bloggers and observers may rely on Courtserve to access information about cases listed in the Court of Protection and other courts, it is important that the lists on the service match those published by the courts themselves. Mr Farmer and Professor Kitzinger also expressed their disquiet that the Defendant’s identity had not been allowed to be reported. I invited them to make written or oral submissions that the reporting restrictions should be varied. I have received written submissions from Mr Farmer. In those very helpful submissions, he draws my attention to PA Media Group v London Borough of Haringey [2020] EWHC 1282 (Fam) in which Hayden J said of a family case (not in the Court of Protection):

The court must consider Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms:

Section 12 (4) of the Human Rights Act 1998 provides that:

Under the Court of Protection (Amendment) Rules 2022, which came into force on 1 January 2023, and therefore after the hearing on 8 December 2022 but before the hearing listed for sentencing on 16 January 2023, the new r 21.8(1) to (5) of the COPR provide as follows:

The new r 21.8(5) allows the court to restrict the disclosure of the identity of P (here, FP) if necessary to secure the administration of justice and to protect the interest of P. It does not appear to allow the court to restrict the disclosure of the identity of the Defendant if necessary to secure the administration of justice and to protect the interest of P (here FP). I can envisage cases in which it might be considered that the only way effectively to protect the interest of P is to restrict the disclosure of the identity of another party – the defendant to committal proceedings. However, the new rules do not appear to allow the court to act on that basis.

However, if the court does have the power to restrict the disclosure of the identity of the Defendant on those grounds (to ensure the administration of justice and to protect FP), the court would be required to consider whether such an order was necessary and proportionate. Here, the following considerations, which weigh in favour and against restricting reporting, appear to me to be particularly relevant:

Balancing all the circumstances in this case, the respective Art 8 and Art 10 rights, and bearing in mind s. 12(4) of the HRA 1998, and the new COPR Part 21, I have decided that I should allow the Defendant’s name to be reported as the defendant to these committal proceedings and I shall amend the Transparency Order accordingly. All parties, including FP through her litigation friend, agree that that is the appropriate course. I shall therefore permit reporting of the defendant’s identity in these committal proceedings. However, reporting of the identity of FP and the place where she is living and being cared for, currently Placement 3, is not permitted, whether that reporting is in relation to the substantive Court of Protection proceedings or the committal proceedings against the Defendant.

It is important to keep the committal proceedings separate from the substantive Court of Protection proceedings, but there is one matter relating to reporting restrictions in the Court of Protection proceedings that I must address in this judgment. As already noted, my judgment in the Court of Protection proceedings has been published (above) with the Defendant anonymised. It would be futile for me to try to pretend that this judgment in the committal proceedings does not relate to the individuals who were the subject of my earlier published judgment, but I shall not cause that published judgment to be altered so as to name the Defendant. I do not consider it appropriate for the court to take steps to make it any easier to identify FP. Nevertheless, it is likely that the Open Justice Court of Protection Project, and perhaps other commentators, will wish to write about the committal proceedings in the context of the Court of Protection proceedings. It would be artificial for them to be able to name the Defendant when commenting on the committal proceedings but not to be permitted to name her when commenting on the substantive Court of Protection proceedings. I therefore permit the reporting of the Defendant’s name in relation to the Court of Protection proceedings also and shall amend the Transparency Order accordingly. The Claimant’s name may also be reported.

Mr Lewis was instructed by the Defendant by Direct Access shortly before the hearing on 16 January 2023. I received his skeleton argument late at night on Sunday 15^th January 2023. I was surprised to read, “Mrs Macpherson searched for a solicitor to take her case on a legal aid basis knowing that there is non-means tested legal aid, but her search was unsuccessful: no solicitor she contacted could take on the case.” As noted, the Defendant was indeed represented by a solicitor on 8 December 2022. That solicitor came off the record because Mrs Macpherson had not subsequently engaged in communications with the firm. It was a further surprise to then read what I understood to be detailed denials of the breaches already admitted by the Defendant, when represented, at the hearing on 8 December 2022.

In fact, during the course of the hearing today, Mr Lewis clarified, after taking further instructions, that his submissions had been directed to mitigation. The Defendant did not seek to resile from the admissions she had made on 8 December 2022.

Mr Lewis legitimately complained in his skeleton argument that his client had not had sufficient time to consider the further alleged breaches alleged in the most recent application to commit served by the Claimant as recently as Friday 13 January 2023. My order directing that that application should be heard at the hearing on 16 January, when the Defendant was to attend in any event, was not an order that the court would make determinations on those allegations and sentence the Defendant for them at this hearing.

I questioned Mr Garlick at the outset of the hearing on 16 January 2023 as to what purpose would be served by pressing those further allegations. Whilst the Defendant is alleged to have gone further than before by encouraging people to attend the court building today to protest, no protesters have attended. The other alleged breaches are very similar to the previously alleged breaches. The Claimant has already alleged eleven breaches over a period of some weeks. Inevitably the further application, made so close to the hearing on 16 January 2023 would, if continued, lead to delay in concluding the applications heard and then adjourned on 8 December 2022.

Mr Garlick asked for time to take instructions. As noted, one of the new allegations is that the Defendant has posted the name of Placement 3 online. Mr Lewis assured the court that his client had now taken that post down. The Claimant accepted that, and Mr Garlick sought permission to withdraw the fourth committal application. I gave permission accordingly. The committal proceedings therefore concern only the first three applications and the five admitted breaches referred to above.

I do not consider it helpful to make a succession of applications to commit in the way in which the Claimant has done in this case. It is difficult for the Defendant to keep track of the allegations against her. It involves duplication of work. It causes or risks delay in making determinations. If a contempt of court has been committed, it should be dealt with expeditiously where possible. If a further breach of a different or much more serious nature has been allegedly committed since the onset of the original committal proceedings then there might be a case for bringing a further application but, otherwise, a Claimant should consider very carefully the utility of making a series of applications. Here, I cannot see that it was necessary or proportionate to make the most recent application.

In his written submissions Mr Lews contended that the committal proceedings should be adjourned to allow Mrs Macpherson to appeal the orders made on 30 June 2022, breaches of which form the basis of the committal applications. He contended that the orders were not lawfully made. The difficulty with that submission is that Mrs Macpherson sought permission to appeal all the orders made on 30 June 2022, including the injunctive orders, and permission to appeal was refused by the Court of Appeal as being totally without merit. In refusing permission, the single judge of the Court of Appeal wrote:

The Claimant did not seek to contend that six of the eleven admitted breaches constituted contempt of court. The Claimant’s concern was with the five admitted breaches which involved posting recordings of FP and, at the same time, revealing her identity. Accordingly, those other six alleged breaches should not have been included in the applications to commit. As for the five alleged breaches set out above, I am satisfied that they were deliberate, the Defendant knew she was breaching clear court orders when she committed those breaches, and the breaches were serious. They were serious in that the Defendant’s conduct was contumelious and they were serious in relation to the impact and the potential impact on FP. They involved a significant invasion of her privacy and they involved manipulation of a vulnerable person who is the subject of Court of Protection proceedings. Mr Lewis did not seek to persuade the court that these five breaches did not each constitute a contempt of court. I am satisfied that each of the admitted breaches set out above did constitute a contempt of court. I proceed to sentence the Defendant on that basis.

COPR r 21.9, in force since 1 January 2023 and therefore binding on me for the purposes of sentencing provides:

The general principles which I adopt are those set out by MacDonald J in Re Dahlia Griffith (application to Commit) [2020] EWCOP 46:

I take into account that the Defendant made admissions at the first opportunity at the hearing on 8 December 2022. She has breached court orders in the Court of Protection proceedings previously, but no previous committals for contempt of court in these or any other proceedings have been brought to my attention. She has attended court as required during the contempt of court proceedings.

The Defendant’s actions, amounting to contempt of court, were deliberate. Her attitude has been that the court’s orders are unjust and that she should not comply with them. She has a mission to “expose” the wrongdoing of those treating and caring for FP, and of the Court of Protection. Her means of doing so is by publishing material online irrespective of whether she has been ordered not to do so. She has not availed herself of the opportunity to remove the offending items from Twitter, Facebook or YouTube between the last hearing on 8 December and today.

The published recordings disclose conduct that is harmful to FP. The Defendant manipulates conversations with her vulnerable daughter and feeds her the line that she is being harmed by those caring for her and by her medication. Since FP has paranoid schizophrenia and believes she is being persecuted, the line fed to her by the Defendant is particularly dangerous to the mental health of her daughter. However, it is the conversations themselves that are most harmful to FP, not the posting of recordings of those conversations online. I have seen no evidence that FP is herself aware of the fact that her conversations have been shown to others by publication online. FP may not even be aware that her telephone conversations have been recorded. She will be aware that she was filmed being “interviewed” by the Defendant but there is no evidence that she knows what the Defendant did with that film. Accordingly, I proceed on the basis that there is no evidence that the admitted breaches have caused FP harm.

The Defendant has chosen directly to challenge the authority of the court. She has shown no respect for the court orders she has breached. She appears to take pride in having committed those breaches. She stands in defiance of the court and is bent on waging a campaign to bring attention to her views about her daughter’s treatment and care. Her views have no foundation in fact. They are bizarre. The Defendant has maintained them in the face of clear evidence that they are wrong. I have no evidence that the defendant’s thinking is affected by illness. Her views may well be sincerely held but that does not justify her acting on them in the way she has, in deliberate breach of court orders designed to prevent harm to her daughter and unjustified interference with her daughter’s human rights.

Mr Lewis informed the court that during the course of the hearing today the Defendant removed all recordings of FP from Facebook and YouTube. Accordingly, links to those recordings on Twitter will not be effective. I am grateful that the Defendant has done so. She has had ample time to do so before today but nevertheless her actions today are a significant mitigating factor. They give the court some grounds for believing that the Defendant will not post similar recordings of FP in the future, in particular if the consequences of doing so are clear to her.

Mr Lewis informed the court, and I accept, that the Defendant has no independent income. She lives with her husband who has disabilities, and she cares for him. The household income comprises benefits most of which are directed to providing care for him. Nor does the Defendant have any savings or realisable assets. Surprisingly she has taken a loan in order to pay for legal representation today when she was entitled to publicly funded legal representation. However, imposing a fine on the Defendant would risk setting her up to fail because she has no income of her own from which to pay a fine.

In this case the Defendant has almost dared the court to send her to prison because she believes it will bring attention to her bizarre views. However, to imprison the Defendant could well cause harm to others, both to the Defendant’s husband, FP’s stepfather, who has health issues and is aged 74 and who is looked after at home by the Defendant, and to FP herself. It seems to me very likely that FP would learn that her mother had been imprisoned by the court. The evidence of Mr Salmon shows that by whatever means, FP has been informed of the committal proceedings. It is very likely that FP would be informed if her mother was indeed imprisoned, and this would be upsetting to FP whose mental state is of course fragile. The knowledge that the Defendant had been imprisoned would risk exacerbating FP’s paranoia and fear of persecution. Her understanding of why she has been removed from her mother appears to be limited. Her understanding of why her mother had been imprisoned may well also have limitations. I have to bear in mind that imprisoning the Defendant could well do FP more harm than the breaches themselves.

The Defendant’s conduct has therefore placed the court in an invidious position. If she is imprisoned for her deliberate and repeated breaches of court orders designed to protect her daughter, the fact of the imprisonment may well cause distress to the very person the court has sought to protect. A sanction other than imprisonment risks sending a signal to the Defendant and to others that the court will tolerate deliberate breaches of its orders.

Only a narrow range of sanctions is available to the court. Weighing all the relevant circumstances I am satisfied that the only sentence that is appropriate in this case is one of imprisonment. Nothing else would meet the seriousness of the Defendant’s contempt of court. However, given the mitigating factors referred to above, in my judgment the appropriate length of sentence is one of 28 days, concurrent for each admitted allegation of contempt. Further, the circumstances of this case are such that immediate imprisonment is not justified. The imposition of immediate imprisonment would be harmful to the Defendant’s husband and, most importantly, to FP. The fact that the Defendant has removed the recordings of FP from the internet, albeit belatedly, allows me to pass a suspended sentence. The sentence of the court for each of the five admitted contempts of court is one of 28 days imprisonment, to run concurrently, suspended for 12 months, that is until midnight on 15 January 2024 on condition that the Defendant does not during those 12 months, conduct herself in any court proceedings in such a way as to be found in contempt of court.

I have reminded the Defendant that she has a right of appeal without permission but that the time limit for appealing to the Court of Appeal is 21 days from today, 16 January 2023. I shall ensure that this judgment is published on the website of the judiciary of England and Wales.