Dr Pelling argued he was not guilty of contempt,
contending that Article 6 of the European Convention on Human
Rights, now enshrined in domestic law by the 1998 Human Rights Act,
demanded that judgments "shall be pronounced publicly". But Lord
Justice Laws, sitting with Mr Justice Pitchford, rejected his
defence.
The judges said the privacy laws covering family
cases were there to protect the interests of minors and it was "an
affront to justice" to publicise judgments which the courts had
determined should be kept private.
The judges ordered that
details of the Bow County Court judgment at the centre of the
alleged contempt must not be revealed in reports of today's hearing.
Website and email addresses giving access to the judgment should
also not be disclosed. But the judges said there was no court order
preventing the press and media identifying Dr Pelling's son,
Alexander, now aged 14.
Lord Justice Laws in his
one and a half hour judgement - Main
points:
Liable
to the Attorney General costs less the costs incurred by the AG
when he made his original errors.
He must
give a written undertaking to Lord Justice Laws within seven days
that he must not repeat this act.
He must
write within seven days to website owners who currently have the
original Judgement on their websites and ask them to remove it.
But there will be no sanctions made against Michael Pelling if
they ignore his request. It is understood that these websites are
not in the UK jurisdiction and are therefore beyond
prosecution.
Justice
Laws denied Pelling leave of appeal for the House of Lords.
It was acknowledged that by far the most
important reason for prohibiting the publishing of family court
judgements is only to protect the child, and also categorically
acknowledged by the Attorney General that Pelling’s son Alexandra
was not harmed by his father’s actions in anyway.
The Attorney General admitted to making
fundamental errors especially in the prosecution and Lord Justice Laws acknowledged
this by not giving costs against Pelling in that part of the
case.
As
Michael Pelling stated, he published his Judgement to test the few
because previous correspondence between him and the Official
Solicitor indicated the current Law was very confused.
Michael Pelling strenuously argued that because
he was being prosecuted seven years after his family court judgement
was given; the prosecution was particularly evasive , especially
since Pelling told the court that he had regularly been advising the
Attorney General in writing of many other clear instances of the
media reporting the names of children in family cases, and also
Sarah Harman’s obvious contempt by sending restrictive family court
papers to her sister the Solicitor General 'Harriet Harman'.
Yet none of the cases were prosecuted
Pelling’s huge amount of time preparing his
case as severely reduced his income over the last two years which
also seemed to be reflected in his punishment.
P4p
Comment: "This is another grotesque waste of hundreds and thousands
of pounds of Tax Payers money, as the costs will never be
recoverable for Michael Pelling on his own admission who his now
penniless".
Of interest:
Dr Pelling's
Trial