Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council v Watson

Committal for contempt must comply with the open justice requirements governing committal orders. If a committal order is made in private, the court must state publicly the contemnor’s name, the general nature of the contempt and the term imposed. There is an automatic right of appeal against a committal order.

Restrictions protecting a child’s identity engage Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Neither right has automatic precedence. The court must focus intensely on the comparative importance of the specific rights, consider the justification for restricting each right and apply proportionality. A person remains entitled to free speech, but is not entitled to breach a court order.

Elizabeth Watson applied to purge her contempt after the court found her in contempt on 15 August 2011 and committed her to prison for nine months on 22 August 2011. The contempt consisted principally of communicating with third parties and facilitating internet publication of material which identified a child and breached orders restricting publicity.

The court considered the legality and safeguards of committal proceedings, the balance between freedom of expression and the child’s privacy and confidentiality, and whether Ms Watson’s contrition and efforts to remove the material justified suspending the sentence.

1. The court confirmed that a person cannot lawfully be committed to prison in secret. Under Order 52, rule 6 of the Rules of the Supreme Court, now appearing in Schedule 1 to the Civil Procedure Rules, a committal hearing may take place in private in specified family cases, but any order of committal must be stated in public. The court must state the contemnor’s name, the general nature of the contempt and the length of the committal. A failure to do so would make the committal unlawful and liable to be set aside on appeal. The court referred to Hammerton v Hammerton, [2007] EWCA Civ 248, [2007] 2 FLR 133.

2. Family proceedings concerning children may be heard in private because Parliament has authorised that course to protect children’s interests and confidentiality. Breach of an order protecting a child’s identity is therefore a serious contempt.

3. In applying the interaction between Articles 8 and 10 of the ECHR, the court adopted the four propositions identified in Re S, [2004] UKHL 47: neither article has automatic precedence; the court must intensely focus on the comparative importance of the specific rights; it must consider the justification for interfering with or restricting each right; and it must apply proportionality to each. The court described this as the ultimate balancing test and considered that it explained the seriousness of the contempt.

4. Ms Watson’s contrition, legal representation, imprisonment already experienced and efforts to remove the offending material justified suspending the nine-month sentence for two years. Her undertaking to use her best endeavours to remove the remaining material had the force of a court order. She was released immediately, but any repetition of the contempt or breach of the undertaking during the suspension would require her to serve the balance of the sentence.

5. In the postscript, the court accepted that Ms Watson had complied with her undertaking after offending files and a further potentially offending article were removed. The court reaffirmed that committal proceedings enforce obedience to court orders rather than stifle free speech.

This was a first-instance application to purge contempt. The judgment records that the respondent had previously been found in contempt and committed to prison for nine months in the same proceedings.