A -v- B (Family) [2013] JRC 168A (28 August 2013)

judgment the deputy bailiff: 1. B, the Court does not find that you are in contempt, and does not find it proved to the criminal standard. Nonetheless, it is right to tell you that we have gravest reservations about the position we are in and we are absolutely determined that both the Bristol court order and our own order last Friday are to be obeyed.

2. In the course of your evidence just now you said words to the effect of you were at your wit's end and you did not know what to do and there is, in our minds, a real risk that tomorrow may see a repeat, if we are not careful, of what happened last Saturday, and that is absolutely not going to be. Now we had wondered whether it would be appropriate for you to call your wife at this stage and ask her to deliver C to the Court now, for the handover to take place and if that would be helpful, because you want to abide by the Court's orders, that is something we are prepared to do. I am sure Mr Kean would be prepared to wait and facilitate in that handover. An option might be that the mother and the social worker should turn up at your house tomorrow and collect the child and you will be there and when they arrive you will absent yourself and no holding on to you will do, you will absent yourself. Because if we get a repeat of what happened on Saturday, the Court is likely to treat that as a contempt because I am making myself much clearer to you today, than I did on Friday afternoon. And if so you will go to prison.

3. The Court is absolutely not prepared for this to continue. All these incidents are capable of doing significant emotional harm to this child. But the real significant emotional harm appears to us to be in an approach which allows the child to think that she has some choice in the matter. The Court's orders do not give her that choice. She is to do as she is told, and you are to do as you are told.

4. The father will bring C to the Le Bas Centre on 29 th August, 2013, at 9:30am The Court directs that if the father then fails to absent himself immediately so that the mother can leave with C thereafter, the police should be called with a power of arrest so that they present the father in court to answer the contempt forthwith. Should this happen the Court will sit tomorrow morning at any time after 11:00am and deal with whatever is presented including any contempt. The Court notes the father's undertaking not to contact the child after delivering her into her mother's care until she has arrived back in the UK.

5. The Court adjourns the matter of costs for a date to be fixed. No Authorities Page Last Updated: 03 Feb 2017 BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Donate to BAILII