Judge orders release of woman found in contempt for breaching reporting restrictions

The President of the Family Division has ruled that a woman jailed for contempt of court after she breached reporting restrictions in Children Act proceedings should be released from prison.

Elizabeth Watson was sentenced in August to nine months in jail after she helped the child’s mother, racehorse trainer Vicky Haigh, put “unwarranted and scandalous allegations” about the father, David Tune, and others into the public domain via email and the internet.

Watson was held in Holloway Prison and later applied – having taken legal advice – to “purge” the contempt of court.

At a hearing she expressed contrition and told Sir Nicholas Wall “in plain language” that she was very sorry for what she had done.

In a judgment published today (20 September), the President of the Family Division accepted that Watson had done what she could to remove from the internet the offending material she had caused to be placed there. He also accepted her undertaking to use her best endeavours to remove an offending email from a particular blog.

The judge ordered her release “as an act of some considerable mercy” and suspended the sentence for a two-year period.

Sir Nicholas said: “I [also] hope that the sentence will be a lesson not just to Ms Watson but for anyone else who may be tempted to breach an order of the High Court.”

Earlier in his judgment, the President said he wanted to take the opportunity to dispel a number of myths, including that a person can be sent to prison ‘in secret’. “Nobody in this country is sent to prison for contempt of court ‘in secret’,” he said.

Sir Nicholas added: “The family court are frequently accused of acting ‘in secret’. It needs to be emphasised that courts hearing cases involving children under the Children Act 1989 sit in private to hear evidence because they are democratically authorised to do so by Parliament. They do so to protect the interests and confidentiality of children.

“The courts thus regard - and I certainly regard - with particular seriousness any breach of a court order designed to protect the identify and confidentiality of a child.”

The judge also said he wanted to re-emphasise that committal proceedings were not issued in order to stifle free speech, “but to ensure obedience to orders of the court”. He added: “Everybody is entitled to free speech; but equally nobody is entitled to breach an order of the court.”

Philip Hoult