Bedfordshire Police Constabulary v RU & Anor

A police force has no standing to apply for committal for contempt of an order made in private civil proceedings where it did not obtain the order and has no statutory authority to enforce it. Under the ordinary law of civil contempt, enforcement is normally pursued by the party who obtained the order, or, where the public interest requires, by the Attorney General. The court may act of its own motion only in exceptional cases requiring urgent intervention. A statutory power enabling constables to arrest suspected contemnors does not confer standing to conduct committal proceedings. Any extension of the police role would require legislation.

A 16-year-old obtained a forced marriage protection order under Part 4A of the Family Law Act 1996. The order prohibited her mother from causing or permitting any marriage and included a power of arrest extending to third parties. After a Muslim marriage ceremony and reception, the police arrested the mother and an aunt, who was not a party to the order.

The police were later treated as applicants in committal proceedings, although they had neither obtained the order nor obtained leave to make an application for one. The issue was whether the police could pursue committal applications for breach of the order.

1. The applications were dismissed. The police could not properly make or pursue the committal applications because they lacked standing.
2. Section 63C of the Family Law Act 1996 permits an application for a forced marriage protection order by the protected person, a relevant third party, or another person with the court’s leave. The relevant third-party order specified local authorities, but not the police. The police therefore required case-specific leave to make an original application and had not obtained it.
3. The power of arrest under section 63I(2) authorised a constable to arrest a person reasonably suspected of breaching an order or otherwise being in contempt. It did not make the police applicants in subsequent civil contempt proceedings. Their ordinary role was to arrest, bring the person before the court, comply with remand directions and provide relevant evidence.
4. Following the principles stated by Megarry V-C in Clarke v Chadburn [1985] 1 WLR 78, the recognised hierarchy was: the party who obtained the order; the Attorney General where the public interest required intervention; and, exceptionally, the court acting of its own motion where immediate action was urgent and imperative.
5. Adding the police as a further category would be a substantial change to a settled legal framework. The contrast with section 42A of the Family Law Act 1996, which created a criminal offence for breach of a non-molestation order, reinforced that Parliament had not created an equivalent offence for breach of a forced marriage protection order.
6. The court declined to refer the matter to the Attorney General. It observed that the statutory scheme had serious weaknesses and encouraged urgent consideration of improved enforcement machinery, but left any reform to Parliament.