NORTH WARWICKSHIRE BOROUGH COUNCIL v SIMON MILNER-EDWARDS

For admitted breaches of a civil injunction, sentencing pursues punishment, securing future compliance and rehabilitation. Criminal sentencing guidelines may provide a useful broad-brush starting point, although the analogy is incomplete because civil contempt has a two-year maximum sentence and fewer sentencing options. Deliberate and persistent breaches committed while on bail may justify custody, even where the breaches cause little or no harm. Early admissions attract appropriate reductions. Time spent in custody on remand must be credited by the civil court itself. Where that custody already equals the custodial penalty, the court may make no further order.

An interim injunction prohibited protests within a five-metre buffer zone around Kingsbury Oil Terminal. The defendant, who was within the category of persons unknown bound by the order, admitted three breaches on 26 April, 28 April and 4 May 2022. The breaches involved peaceful protests within the prohibited zone. The final breach occurred while he was on bail and after he had failed to attend court.

The court had to determine the appropriate penalties for contempt, including the relevance of criminal sentencing guidelines, the effect of early admissions, whether custody should be suspended, and how to credit time already spent in custody.

1. The three breaches were proved to the criminal standard on the defendant’s admissions. The court treated the 4 May breach as the lead matter. It was a deliberate and persistent breach, aggravated by the fact that the defendant was on bail, but it caused little or no harm and therefore fell within category 3 harm.

2. The objectives of contempt sentencing are punishment, securing future compliance where possible, and rehabilitation, as stated in Willoughby v Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council [2012] EWCA Civ 699. The definitive guideline for breach of a criminal behaviour order, applicable by analogy to breach of an anti-social behaviour order, provided a useful starting point. Following Amicus Horizon Ltd v Thorley [2012] EWCA Civ 817, that analogy was useful but incomplete because civil contempt carries a two-year maximum and the civil court lacks the criminal courts’ full range of sentencing options.

3. After allowing for the one-third reduction for the earliest admission, the appropriate penalty for the 4 May breach after trial would have been 28 days’ imprisonment, reduced to 18 days. The earlier breaches, considered individually, would not have warranted custody. The defendant’s nine days in custody represented the equivalent of an 18-day sentence because only half of a custodial term would have been served.

4. The court therefore recorded that the custodial penalty had been served and made no further order on the three breaches. A possible suspension of custody was academic, but the court indicated that it would not have been persuaded to suspend the sentence given the defendant’s rejection of the injunction’s legitimacy and the persistent breaches. No order for costs was made because no costs schedule had been filed or served.