Griffin v Griffin

An order suspending committal for contempt may lawfully be suspended for as long as the contemnor complies with a precisely defined order of indefinite duration. Such an order is undesirable as a matter of ordinary practice, but it is not thereby invalid. The court deciding whether to activate the committal has discretion and must consider the period for which suspension ought reasonably to have operated. A person facing committal must receive a fair trial, including proper notice of the allegations, an opportunity to challenge the evidence and an opportunity to present rebuttal evidence.

The appellant challenged committal orders made after findings that he had breached non-molestation and occupation orders under Part IV of the Family Law Act 1996. A previous committal order had imposed imprisonment suspended on terms that he complied with those orders, which themselves lasted until further order. The suspension was therefore effectively indefinite.

The trial judge activated the suspended sentence and imposed a further term for later breaches. The appellant challenged the admission of late evidence and argued that the original suspended committal order was invalid. The central issue was whether a suspended committal order linked to an order of indefinite duration could lawfully be activated.

1. Appeal dismissed. The appellant had received a fair trial. The late evidence was considered by the trial judge, and the evidence admitted gave adequate notice of the allegations, an opportunity to challenge the evidence and an opportunity to call evidence in rebuttal.
2. The power to suspend committal orders derives from the common law and is regulated procedurally by Order 52, rule 7(1) of the Rules of the Supreme Court 1965, applied to Part IV Family Law Act 1996 proceedings by the Family Proceedings Rules 1991. The rule permits suspension for a specified period, on specified terms or conditions, or on both.
3. A suspended committal order linked to a precisely defined order of indefinite duration is not invalid merely because the suspension is indefinite. The consistent practice that such orders ordinarily should have a finite limit concerns the exercise of discretion, not the existence of jurisdiction.
4. The reasoning in Pidduck v Molloy [1992] 2 FLR 202 was understood as guidance that indefinite suspension should generally be avoided, rather than as establishing invalidity. The position differs from statutory suspended sentences for criminal offences, which do not govern committal for contempt.
5. The court hearing an application to activate the committal is not exercising appellate jurisdiction and cannot validate an invalid original order. It may, however, consider what would have been an appropriate limit to the suspension and decline activation for a breach falling outside that period. A later court may also vary or discharge the linked order.
6. Here the breach occurred only 18 days after the original order, within any period that would reasonably have been fixed. The activation was therefore proper.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal from the order of Assistant Recorder Mostyn QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge in the county court jurisdiction, was dismissed. The Court had dismissed the appeal on 28 March 2000, with reasons delivered on 7 April 2000.