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Michael Pelling ‘Guilty’ but with no ‘Punishment

The High Court  April 8, 2005

Dr Michael Pelling in contempt but judges can name the child. I'll have whatever the judges are smoking. Men's Hour

 

Fathers' Rights Campaigner Guilty of Contempt - A campaigner for fathers' rights who publicised the full details of a private judgment on contact with his son was today found guilty of contempt of court.

Two judges ruled that Dr Michael Pelling's actions were "an affront to justice" but decided not to jail him after he apologised "for getting the law wrong" and undertook not to repeat the offence. Dr Pelling, of Forest Gate, east London, a co-founder of the Campaign for Open Justice, also agreed to take action to have the offending judgment removed from the internet.

He said he had deliberately provoked today's legal action to test his rights in what was an "area of constitutional importance". Now that the High Court had provided a definitive ruling, he was bound to accept it. The prosecution was brought against the 55-year-old by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith QC. He said Dr Pelling had committed "a grave contempt of court" in publishing the judgment in a Bow County Court case relating to access to his son.

Details of the ruling appeared in Contact, a father's rights journal edited by Dr Pelling, in April 2003 and it was also published on the internet. Contact commented that the secrecy laws were there to protect a "corrupt" judicial system. It was also to prevent "the mother-custody default from being overthrown and to silence the voices of the growing ranks of embittered fathers".

Andrew Caldecott QC, appearing for the Attorney General, argued during a recent two-day hearing that the contempt action raised important issues of principle. Privacy laws governing family cases widely attacked by groups such as Fathers 4 Justice, whose members were in court today must be obeyed, even though they were controversial, he said.

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