North Warwickshire Borough Council v Barry Mitchell

When sentencing for contempt arising from breach of a civil injunction, the court must address the objectives of punishment, securing future compliance and rehabilitation. The criminal Definitive Guideline for breach of a criminal behaviour order may provide useful guidance by analogy, but the court must account for material differences between criminal and civil proceedings, including the maximum available sentence and available sanctions. Deliberate breaches must be assessed by culpability and harm, with aggravating and mitigating factors, including admissions and time spent in custody. Credit for time already spent in custody may make a further fine unjust, even where the breaches would otherwise justify financial penalties.

North Warwickshire Borough Council brought contempt proceedings against Barry Mitchell concerning two admitted breaches of an interim injunction relating to protests at Kingsbury Oil Terminal. The injunction prohibited participation in protests within a defined buffer zone and prohibited specified acts connected with protests.

The defendant breached the injunction on 26 April 2022 and again on 4 May 2022. The breaches were admitted through counsel. The court proceeded in the defendant’s absence because he refused to leave his cell. The central issues were the appropriate classification and penalty for the breaches, the relevance of the criminal Definitive Guideline for breach of a criminal behaviour order, and the effect of time spent in custody.

1. Contempt established. The defendant’s admissions and the police witness evidence satisfied the criminal standard of proof. Both breaches were deliberate and fell within culpability category B and the lowest harm category, category 3.
2. Sentencing approach. The court applied the objectives identified in Willoughby v Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council [2012] EWCA Civ 699: punishment, securing future compliance and rehabilitation. The criminal Definitive Guideline for breach of a criminal behaviour order was useful by analogy, following Amicus Horizon Ltd v Thorley [2012] EWCA Civ 817, but required adjustment because the present injunction was not an anti-social behaviour injunction in the true statutory sense. The criminal maximum was five years, compared with two years under section 14 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and criminal courts had sanctions unavailable in civil proceedings.
3. Penalty assessment. The second breach did not justify moving to culpability category A merely because it followed shortly after the first. Both breaches fell within harm category 3. The appropriate provisional fines were £600 for the first breach and £900 for the second, reduced respectively by 25 per cent and one-third for the admissions.
4. Custody and final order. Eight days spent in custody were treated as equivalent to 16 days’ imprisonment. That was a more draconian sanction than the breaches warranted. It would therefore be unjust to impose the fines, and no order was made on the breaches. There was also no order as to costs because the claimant had failed to provide a costs schedule.