The defendant had breached freezing orders and had verified statements put before the court without honestly believing them. He now challenged the subsequent contempt proceedings saying that they were criminal within section 25 of the 1988 Act and hearsay evidence should not have been allowed.
Held: The use of section 25 was confined to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division only, and did not apply. Contempt proceedings were civil in nature and subject to civil rules of evidence. That such proceedings were subject to article 8 of the Human Rights Convention did not prevent them being civil for this purpose.
Lloyd LJ said: ‘The making of a false statement on oath would be perjury, which plainly is a crime, and proceedings for which would be a prosecution, plainly criminal proceedings. When the new rules were devised, with the emphasis on verification of statements by a statement of truth, which is not made on oath, it was necessary to consider what should be the sanction for non-compliance. An offence could have been created, but it was not. Instead recourse was had to the established concept of contempt, which is not the subject of a prosecution or a trial before a jury, but rather of either proceedings within an existing action or separate proceedings before the Divisional Court brought by a Part 8 claim form.
The question being whether the applications before the judge were civil proceedings within the rather general definition in the 1995 Act, it seems to me that the judge was right to decide that they were.’
Judges:
Auld LJ, Lloyd LJ, Wilson LJ
Citations:
[2006] EWCA Civ 94, Times 08-Mar-2006, [2006] 1 WLR 2704
Links:
Statutes:
Criminal Justice Act 1988 25, European Convention on Human Rights 8
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Daltel Europe Ltd (In Liquidation) and Others v Hassan Ali Makki ChD 17-Jun-2004
. .
Appeal from – Daltel Europe Ltd and others v Makki and others ChD 3-May-2005
Application was made for leave to bring proceedings for contempt of court. David Richards J said that: ‘Allegations that statements of case and witness statements contain deliberately false statements are by no means uncommon and, in a fair number . .
See Also – Daltel Europe Ltd and others v Makki and others ChD 21-Oct-2005
. .
Cited by:
Cited – KJM Superbikes Ltd v Hinton CA 20-Nov-2008
The claimant had been sued for the misuse of trademarks by selling motorcycles imported via a parallel market. It claimed that the defendant had filed false evidence in that action, and now appealed a refusal by the judge to bring contempt . .
Cited – Barnes (T/A Pool Motors) v Seabrook and Others Admn 23-Jul-2010
In each of three cases, the former defendants sought leave to bring claims for contempt of court in respect of what it said were fraudulent claims by the respondents. The defendants argued that a party had first to go to the Attorney General.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contempt of Court, Human Rights, Evidence
Updated: 16 August 2022; Ref: scu.238757