Robinson v Robinson

When sentencing for contempt arising from breach of a family injunction, the court must balance two objectives: marking its disapproval of disobedience and securing future compliance. The seriousness of the conduct must be assessed in light of both objectives and its intrinsic gravity.

The breakdown of an intimate relationship may aggravate or mitigate the breach. Although employment is relevant, it does not provide a passport to freedom. The committal term must be fixed before the court considers suspension, and it must not be increased merely because suspension would remove its immediate effect.

The husband appealed against two concurrent sentences of eight months’ imprisonment imposed by His Honour Judge Duncan for breaches of a family injunction. The injunction prohibited him from entering the former matrimonial home and from using or threatening violence, intimidation, harassment or pestering.

The judge found that the husband had entered the home through one of the children, subjected the wife to prolonged verbal aggression, grabbed her, threatened to slit her throat and placed his hand over her mouth. The central issue was whether the eight-month committal terms were excessive in light of the purposes and context of sentencing for contempt in family proceedings.

1. Appeal allowed unanimously. Ward LJ, with whom Robert Walker LJ agreed, held that the concurrent terms of eight months were so excessive that they had to be set aside. Concurrent terms of two months were substituted, resulting in the husband’s immediate release because that period had already been served.

2. Sentencing for contempt in family proceedings differs from sentencing for a criminal offence. It has two objectives: to mark the court’s disapproval of disobedience to its order and to secure compliance in the future. The court must balance the punitive response to contumacious defiance against the coercive function of protecting the person for whose benefit the injunction was granted.

3. Applying Hale v Tanner [2000] 2 FLR 879, the length of committal must be determined without reference to whether the sentence will be suspended. A court must not impose a longer term merely because suspension removes its immediate effect.

4. The surrounding context may aggravate or mitigate the breach. The judge had not given sufficient weight to the fact that the misconduct occurred amid the emotionally charged breakdown of a marriage involving allegations, reconciliation and renewed separation. That context did not diminish the force of the injunction, but it was relevant to the assessment of seriousness and the likelihood of further misconduct.

5. The husband’s employment was an important consideration, particularly in a family committal, but it was not a passport to freedom and could not be decisive in the face of violence. The conduct was serious and justified imprisonment, especially because the husband had contested the facts and therefore received no mitigation for contrition. Nevertheless, it was not sufficiently serious or defiant to justify eight months’ imprisonment.

6. A two-month sentence properly punished the breaches and conveyed a strong deterrent warning. Suspension was inappropriate because the substituted term had already been served. The husband was warned that any further breach of the continuing injunction would almost certainly result in a substantially longer period of imprisonment.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was allowed unanimously. Concurrent sentences of eight months were set aside and concurrent sentences of two months substituted. There was no order for costs, with public funding assessment.

2. Liverpool County Court: His Honour Judge Duncan committed the husband to prison for eight months concurrently for two breaches of an injunction.