Court Of Protection Administers Suspended Prison Sentence To An Individual For Breaching A Transparency Order

Cases dealt with by the Court of Protection by nature tend to be sensitive and should be managed with great caution as a result of the persons involved being vulnerable.

Under the Court of Protection Rules 2017, it is forbidden to publicly disclose the identity of the Protected Party at the centre of the proceedings. In addition, most cases are protected by a transparency order which prevents anyone involved from disclosing any details of the proceedings to others, and this can include approaching witnesses. Usually, specific permission is needed from a judge before third parties who are not already involved are contacted in connection with the case.

Breach of a transparency order is serious as not only does it comprise the breach of a Court order, it puts the Protected Party at risk. The recent case of Sunderland City Council v Macpherson demonstrates that the Court does not take this lightly, and there can be significant consequences for any individual or professional who breaches such an order. In the Macpherson case, the local authority had issued Court of Protection proceedings and one of the respondents in the case was the Protected Party’s mother.

Sunderland City Council v Macpherson

Case background

The Protected Party (P) had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and was suffering also from paranoid schizophrenia. The Respondent would not accept the diagnosis of schizophrenia and regularly voiced her disagreement, alleging the Protected Party had been mis-diagnosed and was being administered with harmful medication.

This in turn undermined the treatment the Protected Party was receiving and risked rendering the Protected Party non-compliant. As a result of the Respondent’s position her contact with the Protected Party had to be substantially cut and the Court of Protection limited this to one supervised 30-minute telephone call every fortnight. The Respondent was also ordered not to publish details concerning the proceedings, being a typical transparency order in Court of Protection proceedings.

The Respondent failed to comply with the above order and continued to express her disagreement publicly via social media. The applicant Local Authority, Sunderland City Council, brought committal proceedings against the Respondent for several breaches of the order.

The Court reviewed each breach of the order and held these breaches were deliberate and serious enough to amount to contempt of Court. The breaches were not only serious in that she had revealed details of the proceedings, but it also disclosed information on public forums which had the potential to place the Protected Party at risk.

The Judge viewed this as serious enough to warrant only a sentence of imprisonment and held each breach, being 5 in total, would incur a penalty of 28 days’ imprisonment. The Respondent argued that there were mitigating factors including the fact that she had removed the social media posts, and the Judge was aware of the negative impact that her imprisonment may have on the Protected Party. Accordingly, the Respondent’s sentence was handed down on a suspended basis for 12 months which shall be enforced in the event the Respondent was found to be in contempt of Court again during the next 12 months.

This case demonstrates that the Court of Protection does have the power to impose criminal sanctions against non-compliant individuals in serious cases. It also emphasises the importance of obeying transparency orders, especially when public disclosure creates further risk for the Protected Party.

The Court, as a result, may sentence a person breaching such order to prison and this may be seen as necessary not only as a deterrent, but in the best interests of the Protected Party and for their protection. The saving grace in this matter might have been the fact that the Respondent acknowledged her wrongdoing and her imprisonment could have adversely affected the Protected Party, and for this reason, the Judge saw fit to suspend the sentence.

Comment

If you are involved in Court of Protection Proceedings and require advice on the Transparency Orders or assistance with proceedings in their entirety, please do contact a member of our contentious Court of Protection team.