Her Majesty's Solicitor General v O'Neill

Deliberate breach of an injunction protecting the identities of persons at continuing risk ordinarily warrants immediate custody. Suspension is available, but only where strong mitigating factors are present. The reference to exceptional circumstances describes the strength of mitigation required, rather than the likely frequency of suspended committal orders. In assessing penalty, the court should consider harm and culpability, including the extent of publication, the age and nature of the material, whether the contemnor initiated or merely shared it, admission of contempt, and personal mitigation. A committal order may be suspended and may be structured to take effect after an existing sentence.

The Solicitor General applied to commit Michael O’Neill for contempt of court after he shared on Facebook photographs purporting to identify John Venables and Robert Thompson, in breach of an injunction prohibiting publication of information or material identifying them. The injunction had been amended to cover publications purporting to depict or identify them.

Mr O’Neill admitted the contempt. The court therefore had to determine the appropriate term of imprisonment, whether it should run consecutively or concurrently with the sentence he was already serving for racial-hatred offences, and whether the committal should be suspended.

1. Disposition. The court ordered committal for four months, suspended for two years from the date of judgment. The order was made because the breach was deliberate, although its operation was suspended because of the substantial mitigation and the respondent’s existing imprisonment. No order for costs was made because the respondent had no money.
2. The need for the injunction remained substantial. Breaches risked serious harm to Venables and Thompson and also to innocent people who might be wrongly identified. The injunction also protected the rule of law by making clear that punishment is imposed by courts, not vigilantes. The court relied on the reasons identified in Her Majesty's Solicitor General v Wixted [2019] EWHC 2186 (QB) and Her Majesty's Attorney General v Harkins and Liddle [2013] EWHC 1455 (Admin).
3. The statement in Wixted that deliberate breaches should result in immediate custody save in exceptional circumstances did not mean that suspended committal orders were rare in number. It meant that strong mitigating factors were required before suspension could be considered.
4. Sentencing began with assessment of harm and culpability. Relevant considerations included the single post, the absence of evidence of wide viewing, the age of the photographs, the fact that the respondent shared rather than originated the material, his delayed admission, his eventual guilty admission following legal advice, and his poor health and personal circumstances.
5. The continuing risk supporting the injunction was also recorded in Venables v News Group Papers Ltd [2019] EWHC 494 (Fam). The term was fixed at four months partly because the respondent was already serving a sentence, and it was suspended so that any further breach during the two-year period would activate it.