AAA & Anor v CCC

A contempt sentence must reflect the seriousness of deliberate breaches of a court order, assessed by culpability and harm caused, intended or likely. An appellate court will interfere only where the sentencing evaluation involved an error of principle, material misdirection, or a sentence outside the reasonable range.

A late and conditional apology, offered only after findings of deliberate breach, is not equivalent to an early admission and may attract little or no reduction. Mitigation already reflected in the term should not ordinarily justify suspension. Suspension requires a powerful additional reason, and a court should consider whether suspending only part of a term better balances punishment and future compliance.

The appellants appealed against a committal order of His Honour Judge Cawson QC in the Business and Property Courts in Manchester, [2021] EWHC 2534 (Ch). The judge found 28 breaches, proved to the criminal standard, of a final injunction restraining disclosure of information, identification of the appellants and derogatory comments.

The breaches followed shortly after a previous appeal concerning the injunction had been dismissed. The judge imposed six months’ imprisonment, suspended for three years, because of the respondent’s belated contrition, good character, ill health, frustration and lack of bravado. The appellants contended that the sentence was unduly lenient and that the suspension reflected legal and evaluative errors.

1. Appeal allowed. The six-month suspended committal order was unduly lenient, involved the consideration of irrelevant matters and failed to give proper weight to material matters. It was set aside and sentence was remitted to the Business and Property Courts in Manchester.

2. The appellate court approached the sentence with the caution required for a multi-factorial evaluation. Nevertheless, the correct range before mitigation was 12 to 24 months’ imprisonment, and 12 to 18 months after mitigation. The 28 deliberate breaches were at the most serious end of the spectrum. They undermined the injunction’s central purposes, including anonymity and protection of commercial relationships, and rendered the order substantially nugatory.

3. The judge did not adequately address those effects or the need to punish the serious breaches. He also gave insufficient weight to aggravating features, including the respondent’s knowledge of the injunction, the timing of the breaches, the continuation of tweets after complaint, his untenable defence and the intention to disclose prohibited information and damage commercial relationships.

4. It was not itself an error of law to omit a separate pre-mitigation starting point: SRA v Khan [2022] EWCA Civ 287. It was, however, a preferable course and the omission here contributed to a confused assessment.

5. The apology was conditional and made at the last opportunity, after the respondent had maintained an unsustainable interpretation and denied one tweet. It was not equivalent to an early guilty plea and counted for very little, if at all. Frustration arising from the underlying share disposal, lack of bravado and absence of personal profit were irrelevant or carried insufficient weight.

6. Mitigation already taken into account in fixing the term should not normally be counted again to justify suspension. The judge also failed to consider suspending only part of the term. Remittal permitted the sentencing judge to consider any later mitigation or aggravation.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed the appellants’ appeal, set aside the suspended six-month committal order and remitted sentence for reconsideration.
• High Court, Business and Property Courts in Manchester: His Honour Judge Cawson QC found 28 breaches of the final injunction and imposed six months’ imprisonment, suspended for three years: [2021] EWHC 2534 (Ch).