The defendant tenant had ben sentenced to prison for contempt of court having misbehaved in contravention of order made relating to his occupation under a tenancy of the claimant.
Held: The offence was serious but ‘Very often it has been said, by people who are not accustomed to going to prison, that the clang of the prison gates itself, and the inevitable indignities of being placed as a prisoner in prison, do have a mark effect upon the individual, and that marked effect does rather diminish the longer the period is that somebody is inside. I can understand entirely why the Recorder thought that this was a serious matter, but he might perhaps have reflected, having come to the conclusion, from which I would not wish to dissent, that an immediate custodial sentence was necessary, whether he needed, with a first offender in these circumstances, to do more than mark the court’s grave disapproval of his behaviour by a sentence that would reflect that it was necessary to go to prison but not did require him to spend a period which a sentence of three months would require him to spend in prison; that is to say, under the present law, some six weeks or so. ‘ In the circumstances three weeks was sufficient.
Judges:
Buler-Sloss, Ward LJJ
Citations:
[1998] EWCA Civ 995
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Contempt of Court
Updated: 19 November 2022; Ref: scu.144474