David Alan Sturgess v Teresa Mary Crick

Permission to bring contempt proceedings requires a strong prima facie case and a public interest in a substantive hearing. Where allegations are many years old, the court should consider their seriousness, the explanation for delay, and the competing demands on judicial resources. Contempt proceedings are generally unsuitable as a means of clearing a person’s name after an unsuccessful criminal appeal or review application. An omission in evidence is not, without more, a deliberate untruth. Nor should a court go behind a criminal jury’s verdict on circumstantial material that was already available at trial unless the new evidence is compelling.

The claimant sought permission to bring contempt proceedings against the respondent concerning alleged perjury, fabrication of evidence and false statements made between 2002 and 2011. Four allegations related to the claimant’s 2009 criminal trial and conviction. A fifth concerned statements in ancillary relief proceedings involving the respondent and her former husband.

The application was initially issued in the Swansea County Court in August 2023 and later issued in the High Court on 27 March 2024. Cavanagh J directed a permission hearing. The central questions were whether there was a sufficiently strong prima facie case and whether the public interest required a substantive contempt hearing.

1. Application refused. Permission to proceed with the contempt application was refused in respect of all five allegations.
2. The applicable test was whether the claimant had demonstrated a prima facie case of sufficient strength such that, provided the public interest required it, permission could properly be given, as stated in Ocado Group Plc v McKeeve [2021] EWCA Civ 145 at [69]. This required a strong prima facie case and a public interest in a substantive hearing.
3. The public interest requirement was not satisfied. The allegations concerned events approximately 15 years old. Their significance for the public had waned, while the claimant had no convincing explanation for the delay. A stale allegation might still justify proceedings where sufficiently serious and supported by a convincing explanation for delay, but those conditions were not met here.
4. The claimant’s principal aim was to clear his name. Contempt proceedings were not generally the appropriate forum for that purpose. The more suitable routes were an appeal against the conviction and an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, both of which had already been pursued without success.
5. A strong prima facie case was found on the allegation that the respondent had denied a sexual interest in women at the criminal trial. Permission was nevertheless refused because the public interest test failed. The allegation concerning the respondent’s daughter did not meet the threshold: an omission from evidence was materially different from a deliberate untruth, and intentional concealment was not apparent.
6. The alleged planting of the videotape was unsupported by direct evidence. The circumstantial material was not cogent, and much of it had already been considered by the jury. Without more compelling evidence, it was inappropriate to go behind the jury’s verdict. The photograph allegation likewise rested essentially on conflicting accounts and did not establish a strong prima facie case.
7. The allegation concerning the respondent’s status as a lodger disclosed a prima facie case that one of two contradictory accounts was untrue, but the material did not show which account was false. It therefore did not establish a strong prima facie case of perjury.