Woman in contempt of court for breach of court order

In September 2025, the Civil Division of the England and Wales Court of Appeal delivered its judgment on an appeal brought by a woman against a finding of contempt of court and sentence of imprisonment imposed on her arising from proceedings in the Court of Protection.

The Court of Protection proceedings concerned a woman in her mid-thirties ‘FP’ who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a child, suffered meningitis in early adulthood and had now been diagnosed as suffering with paranoid schizophrenia. The appellant in the case is FP’s mother. Over a number of years, she had been ‘in sharp disagreement’ with many of the professionals who had treated her daughter.

At the outset of those proceedings, which had been brought by a local authority, there was a dispute as to whether FP lacked capacity to conduct the proceedings. The Appellant maintained that her daughter had capacity.

However, following a hearing in 2020, the Court of Protection found that FP lacked capacity to conduct proceedings, to make decisions about where she should live, or to decide on her care arrangements and contact with other people.

The judge made a series of adverse findings about the Appellant’s conduct including her behaviour towards care workers, which was described as ‘abusive and unpleasant’.

The Appellant’s relationship with FP was described as ‘enmeshed’ with the dynamics of the relationship contributing to an unhealthy cycle affecting both parties and to ‘increased agitation and a decline in FP’s mental health.’ The judge found that it was not in FP’s best interests to be cared for at home by the Appellant and ordered that she be moved to a care home.

Injunctions were made preventing the Appellant from recording FP and care staff (whether by video or otherwise) or publishing information about the court proceedings. Despite this, there was no material change in the Appellant’s conduct.

Following a further hearing, the Court suspended face-to-face contact between FP and her mother. The judge renewed and extended the order restraining the Appellant from publishing information concerning her daughter. On this occasion, the order was endorsed with a penal notice (warning of the consequences of disobeying the order).

In late 2022, the local authority filed three applications to commit the Appellant to prison for contempt of court. It was alleged that she had uploaded to social media, videos showing her talking to FP on the telephone as well as links to video films of FP and articles written about her by the Appellant. At a hearing of the applications in early December 2022, the Appellant, who was represented by counsel, admitted the breaches.

The judge adjourned the hearing for one month before considering sentence.  At the adjourned hearing in January 2023, he found that the Appellant’s actions were deliberate. The published recordings (which he had viewed), disclosed conduct that was harmful to FP as they showed the Appellant manipulating conversations with her daughter ‘and feeding her the line that she was being harmed by her carers’. The conduct was described as particularly dangerous to FP’s mental health, given her diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. A sentence of 28 days imprisonment on each of five counts was imposed but suspended for twelve months.

Following further alleged breaches of the injunction in September 2023, the Appellant was again in court in January 2024 on foot of a further application by the local authority to commit her to prison for contempt. On this occasion, the judge passed a sentence of three months’ imprisonment for each of the breaches committed in September 2023 to run concurrently; he also implemented the 28-day sentence suspended in January 2023 to run consecutive to the three months’ sentence. The Appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal.

Giving the judgment of the three person Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Baker indicated that there were three issues for the Court to consider on the appeal: (1) Whether the appellant acted in contempt of court; (2) Whether the court proceedings in January 2024 were fair; and (3) whether the punishment imposed by the judge on that occasion was fair and proportionate.

In her written and oral submissions the Appellant, who was not legally represented on this occasion, maintained that as the Court of Protection had failed in its duty to protect her daughter from alleged abuse, forced medication, professional collusion and institutional neglect, and wrongly proceeded on the basis that her daughter lacked capacity, the whole process was contrary to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the European Convention on Human Rights. Accordingly, the injunctions were unlawful and she was not acting in contempt of court by failing to comply with them.

The judge ruled that none of those arguments, or other arguments advanced by the Appellant, undermined the central point in the appeal – that she knowingly and deliberately broke an order of the court.  The fact that she profoundly disagreed with that order did not entitle her to disregard it. There was nothing to support her repeated assertions of professional misconduct. Her very strong views had been aired on many occasions in the Court of Protection but for the most part had been rejected by the judges involved.

Having found that the Appellant had acted in contempt of court, that the court proceedings in January 2024 were fair, and that the punishment imposed by the judge on that occasion was both fair and proportionate, the Court dismissed the appeal.

Reference: [2025] EWCA Civ 1159