Fahad Abdi v Manchester City Council & Ors

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appellant's challenge to his committal for contempt for failing to comply with orders requiring the return of his children to the jurisdiction and the provision of mobile phone PINs and passwords. The court upheld the trial judge's findings, made beyond reasonable doubt, that the appellant was in breach of the orders of 11 May 2023 and that he had means of facilitating the children's return. The court held that errors in the local authority's written description of the children's passports were immaterial to jurisdiction and that prior inconsistent or additional hearsay material did not undermine the judge's findings.

The court rejected submissions that aggregate past sentences breached section 14 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, observing that each individual committal was for less than two years. It also rejected complaints of procedural unfairness and breaches of Convention rights under the Human Rights Act 1998, and concluded the sentence of 12 months imposed for breach of the 11 May 2023 order was lawful and not manifestly excessive.

This was an appeal by Mr Fahad Abdi against committal to prison for contempt of court. The committal derived from breaches of orders made on 11 May 2023 requiring the return of four children to the jurisdiction of England and Wales and the provision of PIN numbers and passwords for mobile phones surrendered to the local authority. The appellant had previously been committed on earlier orders and had unsuccessfully appealed to the Court of Appeal in October 2023 ([2023] EWCA Civ 1214). The judgment under appeal is reported as [2023] EWHC 2792 (Fam).

The issues before the Court of Appeal included: (i) whether relevant statements omitted from the appeal bundle affected the judge's findings; (ii) whether the court had jurisdiction given the children's presence abroad and errors in passport descriptions; (iii) alleged procedural unfairness and bias by the local authority; (iv) challenges to the judge's factual findings, in particular as to who controlled access to the children; (v) whether successive committal sentences meant the appellant had been punished multiple times for the same matter; (vi) whether the aggregate sentence breached section 14 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981; (vii) whether the sentence of 12 months was manifestly excessive; and (viii) alleged breaches of ECHR rights under the Human Rights Act 1998.

The court's reasoning was that the omitted statements did not assist the appellant because the updating statement post-dated the committal and did not undermine the judge's findings. Habitual residence remained England and Wales given the children had been born, lived and been schooled there, so jurisdiction was proper; the passport error was immaterial. The judge's credibility findings, including that the appellant was the other party to an exhibited recording and thus knew the children's whereabouts, were open to the judge and not undermined by inconsistencies in the mother's evidence. Successive committal orders for breaches of different orders are permissible; each individual sentence was under two years so section 14 was not breached. The sentence was lawful and proportionate given the need to uphold the court's authority and secure future compliance. Alleged human rights breaches and complaints about the local authority did not provide a basis for setting aside the committal.

Appeal dismissed. The Court of Appeal found no error in the judge’s findings that the appellant had deliberately disobeyed the orders of 11 May 2023 requiring return of the children and disclosure of mobile phone PINs and passwords, and held that the sentence of 12 months was lawful and proportionate. Errors in the local authority's paperwork were immaterial to jurisdiction, credibility findings were open to the judge, successive committals were permissible and section 14 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 was not breached because no single committal exceeded two years.

The committal proceedings were heard in the High Court, Family Division, with judgments including [2022] EWFC 160, [2023] EWHC 1248 (Fam) and the judgment under appeal [2023] EWHC 2792 (Fam). The appellant previously appealed to the Court of Appeal, which dismissed his earlier appeal by written judgment dated 20 October 2023, [2023] EWCA Civ 1214. This appeal from the 7 November 2023 committal was heard in the Court of Appeal and dismissed on 30 April 2024 ([2024] EWCA Civ 411).