Held, costs summarily assessed. (1) On the basis that, as established by case law, a person found to be in contempt of court would usually have no principled basis for a costs order, the sole question was normally whether the costs claimed were reasonable and proportionate. The case law did not establish that, as a general proposition, the means of the contemnor were relevant to the proportionality or reasonableness of the costs claimed. While not ruling out the possibility that, in an extreme case, the imposition on a contemnor in a protest case of an order to pay a large sum of costs might be part of a package of measures that would render disproportionate the interference with his rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly under articles 10 and 11 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, in most cases the application of the usual costs rules to contemnors in protest cases was unlikely to give rise to an unjustified interference with the protestor's Convention rights. This was because: (a) those who deliberately breached orders of the court knew in advance that doing so might give rise to contempt proceedings; (b) costs were recoverable on the standard basis if and only if they were proportionately and reasonably incurred and proportionate and reasonable in amount, having regard to (among other things) the conduct of the parties, the importance of the matter and the particular complexity of the matter or the difficulty or novelty of the questions raised; and (c) if those conditions were met, any interference with the contemnor’s rights under articles 10 and 11 was likely to be proportionate to a legitimate aim (paras 6, 9, 12, 26).

(2) In a protest case, a court applying the factors in CPR r 44.4(3) would be particularly careful to ensure that the sums claimed for a committal application were commensurate with the damage caused by the breach and the damage reasonably feared if further breaches were to take place, including damage to third parties. It would not be proportionate or reasonable to incur substantial costs on a contempt application in respect of a breach whose consequences were minor or insignificant or in a case where there was no realistic prospect of further breaches. Similarly, where the breaches were open and obvious, and the legal issues straightforward, the court would scrutinise with care any substantial claim for costs, while bearing in mind the need for any breaches to be established to the criminal standard. If the court had applied the factors in CPR r 44.4(3) and concluded that the costs claimed had been proportionately and reasonably incurred and were proportionate and reasonable in amount, an order for costs against the contemnor would usually be necessary in a democratic society for one of the aims listed in article 10(2) or 11(2) of the Human Rights Convention. Nonetheless, having applied the ordinary principles in CPR r 44.4, the court ought to stand back and ask whether the sanction and costs order, taken together, represented a proportionate interference with the contemnor’s article 10 and 11 rights (paras 13–15).

(3) Applying the foregoing principles to the present case, the aims which the committal proceedings had sought to achieve were the prevention of disorder and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Where the defendants had all known in advance that what they were planning to do would be in breach of the injunction order, had been warned in the clearest terms that contempt proceedings might follow, and must have known that the claimant would incur costs in bringing those proceedings, yet had chosen to defy the order knowing the consequences, there was no reason in principle why orders for costs should not be made against them. However, even bearing in mind the need to consider relatively extensive evidence and the principles to be derived from recent authority, the amount of costs claimed, including the cost of advice from two Queen’s Counsel and four juniors in addition to brief fees for one Queen’s Counsel and two junior counsel, were excessive. Further, it was not reasonable for three solicitors to have attended the hearing and, while appreciating the need to prove the contempt alleged to the criminal standard, the time spent by the claimant’s solicitors on preparing the applications was somewhat greater than necessary given that the contempt had been committed quite openly and given the relatively straightforward nature of the applications. In those circumstances a costs order in the sum of £5,000 against each defendant would be substituted, the court being satisfied that an order in that sum, taken together with the custodial sanction imposed on each defendant, represented a proportionate interference with their article 10 and 11 Convention rights (paras 14, 20, 21–26).