The Anti–Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provided new powers to the courts in part because the view was taken that the prior Anti-Social Behaviour Order regime was slow, bureaucratic and expensive and often failed to change a perpetrator’s behaviour, failing to provide long term protection for victims and communities. The idea was that the new Anti-Social Behaviour Injunction system could be used to take low-level anti-social behaviour and “nip emerging problems in the bud”. Under the Act the most serious cases of anti-social behaviour, which result in a criminal conviction, can still be addressed through the criminal court by a criminal behaviour order (para 19).

It cannot be over-emphasised that the task of sentencing a defendant for breach of orders in contempt of court is a multifactorial exercise of judgment based on the particular facts and circumstances of the case before the judge. Any sentence must be just and proportionate. However, the Court of Appeal would give guidance intended to allow judges to approach the task of sentencing in a relatively systematic manner (para 56).

Breach of an order made under Part 1 of the 2014 Act is dealt with by proceedings for contempt of court. There are no special rules related to proceedings for breach of orders under the 2014 Act and the general provisions governing such proceedings apply. They are CPR Part 81 (para 25).

CPR r 81.4(2)(i) and (j) reflect the importance of legal representation for respondents to committal proceedings (para 27).

It is clear from the scheme of r 81.8 as a whole that the primary purpose of the transcription and publication requirement in sub-paragraph (8) is to ensure open justice. No temporal requirement is provided for in the rules. Nevertheless the court must plainly undertake its responsibility in a timely fashion, and take heed of a request from a defendant wishing to appeal (para 29).

No permission is required for an appeal from an order in which a party is committed to prison. Moreover, when a committal order is made by a district judge (including a deputy district judge) there are two possible routes of appeal. One is an appeal within the county court to a circuit judge via PD 52A and the Access to Justice Act 1999 (Destination of Appeals) Order 2016 and the other is to the Court of Appeal under section 13(2)(b) of the Administration of Justice Act 1960. The normal route of appeal for these matters will be to a circuit judge. If the circuit judge thinks the matter ought to be transferred to the Court of Appeal, there is power to do so under CPR r 52.23 (para 30).

A distinction is to be drawn between the principles relating to sentencing in ordinary criminal cases and those applicable to sentencing for contempt .A key difference is that the objectives underlying penalties for contempt are different from those in crime, at least in the sense of the relative significance of punishment as compared to ensuring future compliance with the order. Thus the passage at paragraph 383 in the Report of the Civil Justice Council (July 2020) “Anti-Social Behaviour and the Civil Courts” which may have been derived from the Sentencing Council guidelines, and could be understood as putting the objective of punishment first in the order of priority, ahead of ensuring compliance, is not right. Moreover the parts of the CJC Report (eg Annex 1, first paragraph) which propose that judges undertaking the task of sentencing for contempt regard as relevant the guidance produced by the Sentencing Council must be treated with care. The differences between the two systems are great enough that as a general rule, if a sentence contemplated in a civil court is one which is the same or more severe than what would be derived from the Sentencing Council guidelines, it is likely to be wrong (paras 32–34, 36).

As to the objectives of sentencing for breach of an order under Part I of the 2014 Act: since such orders are injunctions made by a civil court, the objectives in sentencing for breach are the ones applicable to civil contempt, namely (in this order): (i) ensuring future compliance with the order; (ii) punishment; and (iii) rehabilitation (para 39).

The five options available to the court when dealing with a contemnor are: (i) an immediate order for committal to prison; (ii) a suspended order for committal to prison, with conditions; (iii) adjourning the consideration of a penalty (iv) a fine; and (v) no order (para 40).

The Court of Appeal proceeded to give further detailed guidance as to matters including suspension, maximum terms, the concept of a custody threshold, and distinct consideration of harm and culpability (paras 41–57).

Where, therefore, three contemnors were sentenced in unrelated cases for breach of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and the contemnors’ appeals were heard together by the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) —