Committal for contempt of court: AB -v- CD

Committal for contempt of courtCounty CourtCommittal for Contempt of Court

Case numbers: MB25F00246
MB26F00037

In the Family Court at Middlesbrough

4 June 2026

Before:

Her Honour Judge Moreton

In the matter of:

AB
(Applicant)

-v-

CD
(Respondent)

Judgment

WARNING: This judgment was delivered in private. The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of the judgment the anonymity of the children and members of their family must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that this condition is strictly complied with. Failure to do so will be a contempt of court.

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JUDGE MORETON:

  1. The court is dealing with an application brought by the applicant, AB, for contempt of a court order in the form of an undertaking given to the court by CD on 7 August 2025. In that regard, the application for committal brought by AB was made on 30 January 2026 and there is a statement that she has filed in support of the same, which outlines the alleged breaches.
  2. In terms of the breaches, these are summarised at B30 in the bundle and I work from that document when dealing with the matter that comes before the court today. The alleged breaches amount to 11 alleged breaches which revolve round a period between 28 December 2025 and 19 January 2026.
  3. The application first came before the court as an attended hearing on 18 February 2026 and thereafter there was a further hearing that took place on 25 March 2026 when case management directions were made for there to be a contested hearing.
  4. The matter comes before the court today in circumstances where, on 25 March 2026, CD admitted paragraphs 1, 3, 4 and 6 of the alleged breaches. Subsequently, AB indicated that she did not seek to pursue paragraphs 2, 9 and 10, and therefore as the matter comes before the court today the outstanding breaches in dispute related to paragraphs 5, 7, 8 and 11. To CD’s credit, he has today admitted the alleged breach at paragraph 5 and as a consequence of that and the admissions that he had already made AB has taken a proportionate position in that whilst she maintains that all the allegations of breaches are true and accurate, she does not seek to pursue the outstanding alleged breaches at paragraphs 7, 8 and 11. Consequently, the breaches that are proved are proved on the basis of admissions made by CD, and those relate to paragraphs 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of those allegations set out at B30.
  5. In that regard, they relate to an incident that took place on 28 December 2025 when CD attended at AB’s property under the influence of alcohol and proceeded to behave in a threatening and intimidating manner, the details of which are set out in the statements filed by AB. The remaining breaches relate to an incident that occurred on the evening of 3 January 2026 when CD again attended at AB’s property late at night, again under the influence of alcohol and again behaved in a manner that was threatening and intimidating and it is noteworthy that during this incident he actually entered her property. On both occasions, there was the parties’ young child, T, in the property and he is only five years of age.
  6. As I have said, the issues in contention have reduced today given the positions adopted by the parties respectively, in terms of CD admitting to the breach at paragraph 5 and AB taking the decision not to pursue the remaining allegations, so the issue for the court is to deal with what punishment should be imposed as a consequence of this.
  7. The reality is that the breaches are serious. As I have already outlined, they took place at AB’s home when their young child was present, they took place late at night, and CD attended under the influence of alcohol. He was threatening and aggressive in his behaviour. He entered AB’s home, and of course, a person’s home is somewhere where they should feel safe and secure, and he has violated her safe space by acting in this way. It has left AB in fear of violence, it has left her distressed and anxious, and has the potential to have impacted upon a young child. I have no doubt that she has been left in circumstances where she no longer feels safe in her own home, and of course, the incidents in themselves will have been exceptionally frightening for her.
  8. I am satisfied that notwithstanding the fact that CD was under the influence of alcohol, he knew that he was breaching the undertaking that he gave to the court and his actions therefore amount to deliberate breaches of that promise made to the court, and whilst it could be said that the incidents only amounted to two incidents over a relatively short space of time, the reality is that having breached the undertaking on 28 December, he chose to breach the undertaking again only a matter of days later.
  9. That said, I recognise that from the period from 7 August 2025, that being the date that he gave the undertaking to the court, to December 2025, he does appear to have abided by the terms of the undertaking and there is no evidence before the court to suggest that there has been any further alleged breaches or poor behaviour on his part since the alleged incidents, as set out in the application and statements in support, so essentially from January 2026.
  10. I have balanced those mitigating factors against the serious nature of the breaches and the impact that those breaches will have had upon AB, and potentially T but notwithstanding that I am satisfied that the custody threshold has been crossed and I therefore sentence CD to 28 days in custody. However, in recognition of the mitigating factors, I will suspend the sentence for a period of one year.

This transcript has been approved by the Judge